Is a fixed fee more expensive than paying by the hour?
For a file that runs exactly as described, an hourly engagement can come out lower — that is the honest answer. A fixed fee carries the risk of the file being harder than it looked, and that risk has a price. What you get for it is certainty before you commit, and an adviser whose incentive is to finish the work rather than to spend time on it.
What if my file turns out to be simpler than you expected?
The quoted fee stands, in the same way it stands when the file turns out to be harder. That symmetry is the whole point of quoting up front. Where a scope shrinks materially — a year turns out to have been filed already, a form is not required after all — we say so and re-quote downwards, because a fee for work that is not needed is not a fee we want.
Do you charge for the first conversation?
No. The first call is free, the helpline is open 24 hours a day, and its purpose is to establish scope so the fee can be quoted properly. Nothing starts before you have a written number in front of you and have agreed to it.
Does a fixed fee ever get renegotiated once the work has started?
Only if the work turns out to be materially bigger than the original scope assumed, in which case the additional scope is priced separately in writing before it is prepared — the fixed fee is not simply abandoned partway through, and it is not silently absorbed regardless of how much bigger the work turns out to be either.
How is a fixed fee actually set if the return's complexity isn't known in advance?
It is set from the client's documents and a description of their situation reviewed before the quote is issued, which is why documents are requested before a figure is given rather than a generic estimate offered blind — the fee reflects the actual facts, not a guess.
Does an hourly rate ever produce a lower total cost than a fixed fee?
It can, for a genuinely simple file that takes far less time than average, but the client bears the uncertainty of not knowing the final figure in advance either way, which is the trade-off a fixed fee removes regardless of which pricing model happens to produce the lower number on a given file.
Why does removing billing uncertainty matter more for cross-border work specifically?
Because cross-border files are more prone to unexpected complications — a missing foreign document, a treaty question that needs research — than a routine domestic return, an hourly bill on this kind of file can run up quickly in ways that are hard for a client to predict in advance, which is exactly the uncertainty a fixed fee removes.
Does a fixed price mean you do less work on a complicated file?
It means the price is set from what the work is worth to you rather than from how long it takes us, and that scoping happens before the engagement rather than during it. A file that turns out to be more complicated than described is re-scoped and re-quoted openly; it is never quietly billed up at the end.
How would a foreign tax authority know I am resident there?
Mostly from information you or your bank already provided. Account-opening forms ask you to self-certify tax residence, and that certification is reported between authorities under the Common Reporting Standard or, for US accounts, under the FATCA framework. Beyond that: employer and payroll filings, property registries, immigration records and the tax filings of anyone who paid you. The realistic planning assumption is that the data arrives. See FATCA and information reporting.
