Low-cost Family office structures

A family office spanning several countries has to answer one question first: where are the decisions actually made — because that decides where the entities are resident. Low-cost family office structures with a fixed fee agreed in writing before any work starts. Call the 24-hour helpline on +1 (416) 619-0068, or request a written quote today.

  • 15+Years of cross-border experience
  • 18,000+Clients served
  • 5.0Google rating
  • 4Global offices — India, USA, Canada & UAE

Secure a fixed quote

Your own file sets the fee. Send it over, and a written quote arrives before anything is prepared.

24-hour helpline: +1 (416) 619-0068
  • 15+ years of cross-border experience
  • 24-hour helpline: +1 (416) 619-0068
  • Fixed fee agreed before work starts
The short answer

A family office spanning several countries has to answer one question first: where are the decisions actually made — because that decides where the entities are resident. Central management and control determines corporate and trust residence, substance tests determine treaty access, and reporting obligations follow each family member's own residence.

Do you need this?

  • A transaction or exit is planned in the next two years
  • Anti-abuse tests have never been applied to your treaty positions
  • Nobody owns the filing calendar for the foreign entities
  • A lender, buyer or investor has started asking tax questions
  • The board has never seen the group's tax exposures written down

If more than one of those is true, this is your page. If none of them is, tell us on a call and we will point you at the right one — that happens often enough that we would rather you asked.

The firm’s founder at his desk in the Delhi office

Fixed fees for family office structures, agreed up front

A family office is quoted on how many entities and trusts sit in the structure and how many countries the family members are resident in, because residence is tested on where decisions are actually taken. Reviewing governance that already exists is a shorter engagement than designing it from the beginning. The fee is agreed in writing first.

PE / structure opinion — fixed-fee price

From $999

fixed, quoted before work starts

A written opinion on whether the activity creates a taxable presence, what would be attributable to it if it did, and what could be changed to alter the answer.
See the full fee page

T2 with foreign income — fixed-fee price

From $999

fixed, quoted before work starts

The Canadian corporate return with the cross-border schedules that travel with it — foreign income, payments to non-residents, and the foreign affiliate flags.
See the full fee page

Corporate cross-border filing

From $999

fixed, quoted before work starts

Company filings where income, ownership or operations cross a border, with the related-party disclosures that come with them.
See the fee schedule

Transfer pricing documentation

From $2,500

fixed, quoted before work starts

The transfer pricing file a group needs when goods, services or finance move between its own companies across a border.
See the fee schedule

Payroll & mobility setup

From $999

fixed, quoted before work starts

What an employer owes when an employee works in another country: the registrations, the withholding and the reporting that follow.
See the fee schedule

Individual tax filing

From $349

fixed, quoted before work starts

Individual returns where salary, investments or property sit outside the country of residence, prepared so relief is claimed once and in the right place.
See the fee schedule

Foreign asset & information reporting

From $349

fixed, quoted before work starts

Disclosure of assets and interests held abroad, built once from a single asset list and filed on every side that asks for it.
See the fee schedule

Non-resident & departure filings

From $349

fixed, quoted before work starts

For anyone taxed by a country they do not live in — rent, pensions and investment income reaching across a border after the move.
See the fee schedule

All published fees on one page — the complete list of what each engagement costs, stated as figures rather than ranges.

What is really being tested

A family office spanning several countries has to answer one question first: where are the decisions actually made — because that decides where the entities are resident.

Central management and control determines corporate and trust residence, substance tests determine treaty access, and reporting obligations follow each family member's own residence. The governance design is the tax design.

Two things follow from that. The first is that the outcome is decided by facts you can arrange and evidence you can keep, rather than by how the return is completed at the end of the year. The second is that sequence matters: the same steps taken in a different order can produce a materially different result, which is why the first conversation is about dates and documents rather than forms.

We do not carry numbers from memory into a filing. Any threshold, rate or day count in your advice is verified for your own year against the body that sets it, and where verification is not available the mechanism is explained without a figure attached. See also related-party goods purchases — transfer pricing and US person with a TFSA or RESP — the reporting.

What we actually file

  • Implementation steps mapped to their deadlines
  • A written structure review with the positions and their support
  • The filing calendar, by entity and jurisdiction, with owners
  • The elections and disclosures the plan depends on
  • The evidence pack for substance and treaty entitlement

A worked example

This is what the rule produces when you put figures through it.

Credit relief on one stream of income

Take C$106,000 of income taxed in both countries. Assume the other country charged 21% on it and the home country would charge 28% on the same amount.

Credit relief on one stream of income
ItemAmount
Income taxed in both countriesC$106,000
Tax paid abroad (assumed 21%)C$22,260
Home tax on the same income (assumed 28%)C$29,680
Credit available (lesser of the two)C$22,260
Home tax still payableC$7,420

The credit absorbs C$22,260 and leaves C$7,420 payable at home, because the home rate on this income is the higher of the two. The balance is real cash and it is due on the home timetable, which is why instalments get raised in the first meeting. The shape of that result holds; the size of it depends entirely on your own numbers and dates.

Illustrative figures, not a client engagement: the amounts are chosen to make the mechanism legible, and the rates and thresholds are assumptions stated for the example only. We confirm every one of them against the issuing authority for your own tax year before anything is filed.

The four steps

  1. 1We start with the chronology: dates, countries, and what has already been filed
  2. 2You get the scope and the fee in writing before we touch anything
  3. 3The work is prepared and reviewed by a named person, not a queue
  4. 4Nothing is filed until you have read it

The fixed fee

Fees for family office structures are quoted as a fixed amount for a defined scope. There is no hourly meter and no surprise on the invoice: the number is agreed in writing before anything starts. Comparable engagements and their fixed fees are set out on the pricing pages.

  • 18,000+ clients served across 4 global offices: India, the USA, Canada and the UAE.
  • We will tell you when you do not need us, and that call is free.
  • Documents move through an access-controlled portal rather than email.

What to do next

Ask before the move rather than after it, because most of the useful options expire on the date. The fastest start is a short call and three things: what happened, when it happened, and which countries are involved. Everything else we can ask for as it comes up.

Checked and signed off for the 2025 and 2026 filing seasons by Udit Gupta, Cross-Border Tax Expert, Legal Quotient Consultants. General information, not advice for your circumstances — call our 24-hour helpline to discuss your own position.

Business tax advisory, in practice

The search that brings most people to this page is business tax advisory. It is answered here for family office structures: what creates the obligation, which filings discharge it, and the fee agreed before the work starts.

A family office spanning several countries has to answer one question first: where are the decisions actually made — because that decides where the entities are resident.

How the engagement runs, phase by phase

  1. Start with a conversation about the facts

    Dates, residence, where the income arose. Fifteen minutes is usually enough to know what applies.

  2. Scope and price, both written down

    You get the scope and the fixed fee together, so there is no question later about what was included.

  3. Prepared by one team, reviewed by a named practitioner

    The same people see both sides of the file, and the reviewer signs their name to it.

  4. Filed, then followed through

    Submission is not the end of the engagement — the queries that arrive afterwards are part of it.

The difference a dedicated cross-border team makes

Factor Legal Quotient Hourly billing model
Pricing A fixed fee, agreed in writing before work starts Hourly, billed as incurred
Experience 15+ years of cross-border work, 18,000+ clients Varies by file
Both sides of the border Prepared together by one team, so relief is claimed exactly once One country at a time, reconciled later
Who reviews it A named practitioner, published on the page Whoever the queue reaches
Where the work happens Our offices in India, the USA, Canada and the UAE Whichever single office you can travel to

Key terms behind this page, defined

Form 15CB
A chartered accountant's certificate on the taxability and withholding of an Indian outward remittance, delivered under a banking deadline.
Sourcing by workdays
The apportionment of employment income and equity gains by reference to days worked in each country — reproduced from a travel record, not from memory.
Reasonable cause
The standard for penalty relief based on circumstances an ordinarily prudent person could not have avoided, evidenced with dates and documents.
FATCA
The US regime requiring reporting of foreign financial assets by taxpayers and of US accounts by foreign institutions, backed by withholding.
family office structures: Our analysis

Central management and control determines corporate and trust residence, substance tests determine treaty access, and reporting obligations follow each family member's own residence.

However the file develops, three things stay fixed: a written scope and fee before work begins, a named practitioner reviewing the result, and your approval before anything is filed.

The published fees closest to family office structures

The fees below cover the pieces a family office has to keep running: board composition and minutes that match where control really sits, the substance behind any treaty position, and a filing calendar per member and per entity. Families spread across more jurisdictions, or holding assets through longer chains, take more of that work.

Transfer pricing documentation

$2,500fixed, before work starts

Covers: Local file, master file and benchmarking for groups trading across borders, documented to the standard the authority expects.

See this fee page

Payroll & mobility setup

$999fixed, before work starts

Covers: What an employer owes when an employee works in another country: the registrations, the withholding and the reporting that follow.

See this fee page

What working with us on family office structures looks like

Cross-border is the whole practice

International and cross-border tax is all we do — not a sideline next to domestic work. The edge cases on this page are our ordinary Tuesday.

You deal with the person who did the work

The practitioner who prepared and reviewed your file is the one who answers the question about it.

The reporting penalties get named early

The heaviest exposure on a cross-border file is usually a disclosure form, not the tax. We identify which ones apply before a deadline turns into a penalty.

Every figure on a page is traceable

Where a rate or a threshold appears in our writing it names the tax year it belongs to. Where it could not be confirmed, the page describes the mechanism and quotes no number.

The team at work in the open-plan office

Family office structures — the four phases

Step 1

The opening call

We establish what happened and when, because every position here is anchored to a date

Step 2

Scope in writing

A written scope and a fixed price, so you know the cost before committing

Step 3

Prepared and checked

The filings are prepared, cross-checked against each other, and reviewed by name

Step 4

Filed, then supported

You see the result, approve it, and we file it

Two of the firm’s advisers at the glass desk in the Delhi office

From first document to filed return

  • Step 1: Send what you already have – Slips, statements, prior returns — in any order. We list what is still needed after reading them.
  • Step 2: A fee agreed in writing – Quoted from those documents, before the work starts, and it does not move once you accept it.
  • Step 3: Each side drafted against the other – The returns are built together rather than in sequence, so relief is claimed once and in the right country.
  • Step 4: You approve before it is filed – The finished return comes to you first. Nothing is submitted on your behalf unseen.

Quoted up front, in writing.

Contact Us 24-hour helpline +1 (416) 619-0068

More of the same work, from other angles

Every link below is a full page of its own — the same depth as this one, for its own subject.

The work we do for clients like this

Setting up in India — branch, LO, project office or subsidiary The full guide to setting up in India — branch, lo, project office or subsidiary, with the fee fixed before any work starts.
Form 8288 — FIRPTA withholding return Its own page: form 8288 FIRPTA withholding — mechanism, deadlines and published fees.
GIFT City and IFSC for NRIs and funds Everything on gift city and IFSC for NRIs and funds, at the same depth as this page.
Pensions and annuities — the treaty article Pensions annuities treaty article — the guide, the FAQ and the fixed fee.
IRS audit of a foreign-income return The full guide to IRS audit of a foreign income return, with the fee fixed before any work starts.
Form T1243 — deemed disposition Its own page: T1243 deemed disposition — mechanism, deadlines and published fees.
Marketplace facilitator rules Everything on marketplace facilitator rules, at the same depth as this page.
Paying interest on a shareholder loan abroad Paying interest shareholder loan abroad — the guide, the FAQ and the fixed fee.
Form 8992 — GILTI: global intangible low-taxed income The full guide to global intangible low taxed income, with the fee fixed before any work starts.

Who we bring this work to

Seafarers & mariners — what we charge The full guide to seafarers & mariners what we charge, with the fee fixed before any work starts.
Airline pilots — what you owe in each country Its own page: airline pilots what you owe in each country — mechanism, deadlines and published fees.
Seafarers & mariners — relief you're probably missing Everything on seafarers & mariners relief you're probably missing, at the same depth as this page.
Tax for architects Architects tax — the guide, the FAQ and the fixed fee.
Tax for it contractors The full guide to it contractors tax, with the fee fixed before any work starts.
Tax for railway & transit crew Its own page: railway & transit crew tax — mechanism, deadlines and published fees.
Tax for influencers & content creators Everything on influencers & content creators tax, at the same depth as this page.
Non-resident landlords — what you owe in each country Non-resident landlords what you owe in each country — the guide, the FAQ and the fixed fee.
Civil & structural engineers — what we charge The full guide to civil & structural engineers what we charge, with the fee fixed before any work starts.

The corridors we work every week

Malta tax for expats — country guide The full guide to Malta tax for expats, with the fee fixed before any work starts.
Japan tax for expats — country guide Its own page: Japan tax for expats — mechanism, deadlines and published fees.
Australia tax for expats — country guide Everything on Australia tax for expats, at the same depth as this page.
Malaysia tax for expats — country guide Malaysia tax for expats — the guide, the FAQ and the fixed fee.
Spain tax for expats — country guide The full guide to Spain tax for expats, with the fee fixed before any work starts.
Singapore tax for expats — country guide Its own page: Singapore tax for expats — mechanism, deadlines and published fees.
Canada–Germany tax corridor Everything on Canada Germany tax, at the same depth as this page.
Bangladesh tax for expats — country guide Bangladesh tax for expats — the guide, the FAQ and the fixed fee.
Russia tax for expats — country guide The full guide to Russia tax for expats, with the fee fixed before any work starts.

The people on your file

Five named practitioners, each with the part of a cross-border file they carry. Every page on this site says who reviewed it, and the reviewer is one of these people rather than an unnamed team.

Udit Gupta

Udit Gupta

Cross-Border Tax Expert

CA (ICAI), In-Depth Tax Trained

Reviews and signs off the practice's cross-border positions, and carries final responsibility for the treaty analysis on every file that leaves the office.

Abhinav Gupta

Abhinav Gupta

Canada Tax / International Tax

Canada Tax, International Tax, Cross-Border Tax, Transfer Pricing

Canadian returns with foreign income, non-resident filings, and the transfer-pricing documentation that runs alongside intercompany work.

Raghav Gupta

Raghav Gupta

International Tax

International Tax, Transfer Pricing Specialist

Benchmarking, method selection and the local-file and master-file sets that support a group's pricing policy under examination.

Anmol Mittal

Anmol Mittal

Canada and US tax

CPA Canada, CPA USA, CA (ICAI)

Files that have to be right on both sides of the border at once — dual filings, streamlined catch-ups, and the foreign tax credit reconciliation between them.

Vinayak Indolia

Vinayak Indolia

CFO advisory

CPA, CA. Fractional CFO and Senior Advisory Specialist

Groups that need the tax position and the finance function to agree: structure reviews, intercompany policy, and the reporting a board can act on.

Meet the whole team

Cross-border tax case studies

Case study 1

Fifteen Per Cent Held Back From a Fee for Services in Canada

A payer must withhold from fees paid to a non-resident for services rendered in Canada, whether or not any tax is ultimately owed. A waiver applied for before the work is invoiced avoids the withholding; after it, the money comes back through a return.

Read how this one runs
Case study 2

Branch or Subsidiary, Decided Before Incorporation

The choice changes where profits are taxed, what has to be filed, and whether losses in the early years are usable. It is difficult to reverse once trading has begun, so it is modelled first.

Read how this one runs
Case study 3

One Employee Working From Another Country

A single remote employee can create payroll registration, withholding and social security obligations in their country, and sometimes a corporate presence too. The review sets out each obligation and the order they have to be registered in.

Read how this one runs
Case study 4

A US LLC Owned From Canada

The two countries classify the vehicle differently, so relief that ought to apply frequently does not and the same profit can be taxed in both hands. The engagement examines whether the structure can be changed and what the change itself costs.

Read how this one runs
Case study 5

The Two-Year Window After Returning to India

Returning residents pass through a transitional status in which foreign income is largely outside the Indian net. The engagement establishes when the window opens and closes, and puts the transactions that benefit inside it.

Read how this one runs
Case study 6

A Taxable Presence Created Without an Office

A dependent agent habitually concluding contracts can create a permanent establishment where there is no premises at all. The review tests what the person actually does against what the treaty describes.

Read how this one runs
Case study 7

A US LLC Owned by a Canadian, Taxed Twice by Design

The two countries classify an LLC differently, so the credit relief that ought to apply frequently does not. The engagement looks at whether the structure can be changed, and where it cannot, at how to make the credit work.

Read how this one runs
Case study 8

Whether the Year Made Someone an NRI

Indian residence is decided by presence tests applied to the financial year, and a single trip can change the answer for the whole of it. The status is established before any return or exemption is considered.

Read how this one runs

All case studies — every published engagement in one place.

Core International & Cross-Border Tax Services

International Tax Planning & Advisory

Strategy and compliance for income, assets and families spread across borders.

One coordinating team: filings on every side of the border are sequenced so treaty relief and foreign tax credits are claimed once — and in the right country.

U.S. & Cross-Border Tax Returns

Dual filers: U.S. citizens in Canada and Canadians with U.S. income run two parallel systems — we prepare both, in the right order, every year.

Expat & Emigration Tax

The move year is its own project: the elections and valuations filed that year decide the next decade of both countries’ returns.

Non-Resident Canadian Tax

Default withholding is 25% of gross: elective returns routinely turn over-withheld rent and pensions into refunds.

Transfer Pricing & BEPS

Documentation prepared with the return is the cheapest insurance in international tax; reconstructing it during an audit is the most expensive.

Cross-Border Estates & Trusts

Wills drafted for one country routinely misfire in the other — deemed disposition here, estate tax there, credits in between.

Cross-Border Corporate Tax

Expansion raises the same four questions every time — entity, PE, repatriation, payroll. We answer them before the tax authorities do.

India Tax for NRIs & Returning Residents

The deduction is taken on the sale price, not the gain — which is why an NRI property sale strands cash unless the certificate is applied for before closing.

Canadian Tax with a Foreign Element

Residency is decided on facts, not on a form — and the year you arrive or leave is the one where the largest amounts turn on the smallest details.

UAE Tax for Expats & Their Home Country

A zero-tax country is only half the answer — the question that decides the bill is whether the country you came from still treats you as resident.

Industries & Client Types We Serve Worldwide

Global E-commerce & Marketplaces
Technology & SaaS
Professional Services Firms
Cross-Border Real Estate
Importers, Exporters & Manufacturers
Athletes, Artists & Entertainers
Remote Workers & Digital Nomads
Investment Funds & Holding Companies

Global E-commerce & Marketplaces

  • Foreign VAT / GST / sales tax registrations
  • Marketplace withholding reviews
  • Inventory nexus & PE analysis
  • Multi-currency books reconciled
Explore E-commerce & Marketplaces

Technology & SaaS

  • Cross-border revenue sourcing & withholding
  • IP structuring with real substance
  • Equity for cross-border teams
  • U.S. expansion: entity & PE setup
Explore Technology & SaaS

Cross-Border Real Estate

Foreign property income and sales are taxed in both countries by default; Section 216, FIRPTA and treaty credits are the standing toolkit.

Property is taxed where it sits, which is the one rule no treaty overrides. What the treaty does decide is the credit, the rate on the rent and what happens on the sale — and the clearance certificate on a disposition is applied for before closing, not after the buyer has already held the money back.

  • Section 216 rental returns
  • FIRPTA withholding recovery
  • Section 116 clearance
  • Treaty credit optimization
Explore Real Estate

Importers, Exporters & Manufacturers

  • Transfer pricing documentation (s.247)
  • Customs value vs transfer price
  • Foreign affiliate reporting (T1134)
  • Country-by-country reporting
Explore Trade & Manufacturing

Athletes, Artists & Entertainers

  • Reg 105 & U.S. CWA agreements
  • Multi-state & country calendars
  • Touring income allocation
  • Royalty & image-rights withholding
Explore Athletes & Entertainers

Remote Workers & Digital Nomads

  • Residency analysis before moving
  • Employer payroll exposure
  • Totalization & social security
  • Foreign tax credits
Explore Remote Workers

Investment Funds & Holding Companies

  • Treaty access & PPT reviews
  • FAPI & surplus computations
  • Withholding-efficient routing
  • Governance & substance
Explore Funds & Holdcos

Family office structures — questions we are asked

Family office structures — how much of this can I do myself?

Some of it, yes — and we will say so on the call if that is the honest answer. The parts that are worth paying for are the ones where a missed election, a missed deadline or an unverified threshold costs more than the fee: central management and control determines corporate and trust residence, substance tests determine treaty access, and reporting obligations follow each family member's own residence.

What if I have already filed and got it wrong?

That is a common starting point. We re-derive the position, identify whether an amendment or a disclosure route is the right vehicle, and tell you which one preserves the relief that is still available. The order matters more than the speed.

How long will it take?

It depends on the documents rather than on us. Once the pack is complete most filings turn around inside a fortnight; anything that needs a certificate from a tax authority runs on that authority's timetable, which we tell you at the start rather than at the end.

How does cross-border tax planning work?

It starts with facts rather than structures: which countries have a claim on you, what each one taxes, and where the two overlap. From there the decisions are about order and timing — which country taxes first, where relief is claimed, and whether a filing or a certificate has to be in place before money moves rather than after. Most of the value is in the sequencing, because relief claimed late is usually relief recovered slowly. See international tax planning.

Is "fund transfer pricing" the same thing as transfer pricing?

No — and if you came here to calculate FTP, this is not it. Fund transfer pricing is a bank's internal allocation of funding costs and benefits between its own business units, a treasury and asset-liability management discipline used to measure branch or product profitability. Tax transfer pricing is about prices between legally separate related parties across borders, and about which country taxes the resulting profit. The words overlap; the fields do not. See our transfer pricing work.

Can an accountant in one country file my return in another?

Yes, where they are authorised to represent you with that tax authority and the filing is done electronically. What matters is not where the adviser sits but whether they can lawfully act for you and are competent in both systems — a return prepared with no knowledge of the other country is where the relief gets missed. We file on both sides, from offices in India, the USA, Canada and the UAE. See how we work.

Will this trigger an audit?

Filing correctly does not create risk; a pattern of missing filings does. Where a disclosure route is involved we set out what the authority will see and in what order before you commit to it.

Is there a minimum engagement?

No, but there is a minimum that makes sense: below a certain scope the honest answer is often that you can handle it yourself, and we will say so.

24-hour helpline: +1 (416) 619-0068

Family office structures, quoted before we start

Describe what happened and which countries are involved; the fee comes back in writing before anything begins.

  • Re-quoted, never silently invoiced
  • A named reviewer signs off every filing
  • 24-hour helpline, +1 (416) 619-0068

Our practitioners are alumni of leading accounting and tax institutions

Where our partners studied — CPA Canada (In-Depth Tax Program), AICPA, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Malaysian Institute of Accountants.

Request a Quote +1 (416) 619-0068