What is included in the fee for annual compliance retainer?
The whole year mapped by entity and jurisdiction, with an owner for every filing, lead times for documents that come from elsewhere, and the filings themselves.
What would make annual compliance retainer cost more than the standard tier?
Entity count and jurisdiction count, not turnover. Each entity brings its own year end, its own return and its own information reporting.
Is the fee really fixed?
Yes, for the scope quoted. If the scope changes — another year appears, an entity turns up, a certificate becomes necessary — we re-quote before doing the work, so there is never an invoice you have not already agreed to.
What does an annual compliance retainer actually include?
A calendar, and the filings on it. Before anything is filed we map the year by entity and by jurisdiction, so every obligation has a name against it, a document list, and a point in the year by which those documents have to exist. That map is the retainer; the filings are what it produces. It also carries lead times for anything arriving from somewhere else, an overseas bookkeeper, an auditor, a bank confirmation, because those dependencies are what make deadlines fail. The written scope lists each filing, so you can see precisely what you are buying.
Can I add another company to the retainer mid-year?
Yes, and it is re-quoted rather than quietly absorbed. A new entity brings its own year-end, its own filings and often its own jurisdiction, so it is priced as an addition and the calendar is rebuilt around it. The rebuild matters more than the fee does. An entity added in the middle of a year usually has obligations that began before it joined the retainer, and those have to be placed on the map rather than assumed to belong to somebody else. We tell you which ones fall outside the retainer period before you commit to it.
Does the retainer cover the CRA writing to me about a filing?
Correspondence arising from something we prepared sits inside the retainer: if an authority queries a return we filed, answering for it is part of the job. An audit is not, and neither is a dispute that goes beyond an exchange of letters, because both are open-ended work that cannot honestly be priced in advance inside a fixed annual figure. If one begins, we quote it separately and you decide whether we run it. The scope letter draws that line explicitly, so it is not being argued over at the point it matters.
Is a retainer cheaper than paying for each filing separately?
Not by way of a discount, and we would not offer one. The same filings cost broadly the same whether they are bought together or one at a time. What the retainer changes is sequencing. Work that would otherwise be repeated across separate engagements, reconciling the same figures, re-reading the same agreements, re-establishing the same positions, is done once and reused through the year. Where that saves money it shows up in the quote. Where it does not, the retainer still earns its place through the deadline map rather than the fee.
Who is responsible for meeting the deadlines under a retainer?
We are, for the filings named in the scope, on the condition that documents reach us by the points the calendar sets. That is why the calendar is built backwards from each filing rather than forwards from today: every obligation has a moment by which the underlying records must exist, and the ones depending on a third party are flagged at the start. If a document is going to be late, we tell you while there is still room to do something about it, which is the whole reason for mapping the year in advance.
What happens if my company's year-end changes?
The calendar is rebuilt, and it is worth doing properly rather than shifting everything by the same interval. A changed year-end usually creates a short period that has to be filed in its own right, moves the instalment pattern, and can pull a filing in one country out of step with the one it feeds in another. We map the transition year separately, identify which obligations belong to the old period and which to the new, and re-quote if the change adds filings. The rest of the retainer carries on unchanged around it.
What is cross-border tax?
Cross-border tax is what applies when income, assets or people touch more than one tax system at once — someone living in one country and earning in another, a company selling or hiring abroad, a family holding property in a second country. The work is rarely one country's rules applied harder; it is reconciling two sets of rules and claiming the relief that stops the same income being taxed twice at full rates. See what we do.
Do I have to file in both countries?
Frequently yes, and the two filings do different jobs. The country where the income arises taxes it at source; the country where you are resident taxes your worldwide income and then gives credit for the tax already paid. Filing only one side is what leaves relief unclaimed — the credit has to be asked for on a return. We prepare both sides so the numbers agree. See dual filing.
