Is it safe to email tax documents to my accountant?
Email is a poor channel for this particular category of paper, less because of interception than because of what it leaves behind. A tax file holds identity documents, account numbers, addresses and signatures — close to the complete set someone would need to impersonate you — and email scatters copies across mailboxes, phones and backups on both sides, indefinitely, with no record of who opened what. An access-controlled channel replaces that with one held copy, a list of who may see it, and a log of when each document was provided. Documents that have to be exchanged are exchanged that way and signed electronically.
Who can see the documents I upload?
The people working on your file, and that should be a list you can ask to see. Access control only means something if it is actually narrow: a channel where everyone in a firm can open every client's papers is a filing cabinet with the door taken off. Where a file involves more than one country, the question extends to which of the people involved needs which document — a schedule of foreign accounts is needed by the person preparing the disclosure and by nobody else. Ask what the access list for your file looks like, and what happens to it when someone leaves.
How do I send documents that only exist on paper?
Scan them where you can, and where you cannot, say so early rather than at the end. Older cross-border files routinely depend on paper with no electronic version at all: an assessment issued decades ago, a purchase deed, a letter from a bank that predates its systems. Those get handled as their own small exercise — what exists, where it is, who holds the original, and whether a copy will serve for the filing or the original has to be produced. The point is that the gap is identified while there is time to work on it, not once a return is otherwise ready.
Can my spouse and I use the same document channel?
You can, but on a cross-border file it is often better that you do not, and the reason is not privacy in the abstract. Spouses can have different residence positions, different foreign accounts and different disclosure obligations, and one partner's account statements can be relevant to that partner's filing and to nothing else. Separate access keeps each person's documents attached to their own file, which matters if the positions ever diverge — on separation, on an estate, or where one of you is asked about something the other provided. Joint documents then sit in both files by intent rather than by accident.
What happens to my documents after the return is filed?
They are retained, because a cross-border position can be questioned long after it is taken and the file is the only thing that will answer for it. What matters is knowing for how long, on what basis, and what is kept: the documents themselves, the record of when each was provided, and the advice and review notes around them. Ask before you upload rather than afterwards. The related question people forget is what you keep yourself — an adviser's retention is no substitute for your own copies of the underlying records, particularly where those records originated in another country.
Does an upload record prove when I provided a document?
It records it, which is more than most correspondence manages. An access-controlled channel logs each document, who provided it and when, so a question about whether a statement was handed over before a filing has an answer that does not depend on anyone's recollection or on searching a mailbox. That has been useful in discussions with an authority about whether a taxpayer was forthcoming, and in ordinary disagreements about who was waiting for whom. It is a record of the exchange, not of the document being right; the document still has to say what it says.
What happens if I have not filed for several years?
Missed years are handled as one package, not one at a time, because the route chosen for the first year determines the relief available for the rest. Each country has a disclosure or relief programme with its own conditions, and entering the right one — before the authority contacts you — is usually what keeps penalties down. Filing quietly outside a programme forfeits that protection. See catching up on missed returns.
What is double taxation?
Double taxation means the same income being taxed by two authorities. It comes in two forms: juridical, where two countries each tax one person on one amount, and economic, where two different people are taxed on the same underlying profit — a company on its earnings and a shareholder on the dividend paid out of them. Relief comes from a treaty, a foreign tax credit, or an exemption, and which one applies depends on the income type. How to avoid double taxation sets out the routes.
