Second opinion on an existing structure — can I handle this 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: the review re-tests classification in each country, treaty entitlement, substance, reporting completeness and the cost of simplification.
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.
Why review a cross-border structure if nothing has changed?
Because the structure does not have to change for the world around it to. Treaty positions, entity classification rules and reporting obligations move, and a structure built for one purpose is often still standing long after that purpose ended. The practical point is timing. Most structures are examined for the first time by a buyer's advisers, an auditor or a liquidator, and at that moment every finding has a deadline and a counterparty attached to it. The same findings reviewed in a quiet year are ordinary work. Unfiled information returns and forgotten dormant entities are the two that turn up most often.
I have a dormant company overseas — can I just ignore it?
Dormant usually means no trading, not no obligations. An entity that files nothing can still owe annual returns, accounts and information reporting in the country it is registered in, and its existence can be reportable by its owner in the country where they live. Because nothing is happening inside it, no one looks at it, so the failures accumulate quietly and are discovered by someone else. Either bring it back into compliance or wind it up properly, and cost both before choosing. A wind-up has its own consequences for the assets inside and for the owner, and those are cheaper to plan than to unpick.
What does a review of an existing structure actually look at?
Five things. How each entity is classified by each country, because a mismatch between the two is where most surprises live. Whether the treaty positions being relied on are still available and still supportable. Whether the entities have the substance their claimed treatment assumes, particularly where the people making the decisions are not in the country of registration. Whether every information return that the group and its owners owe has actually been filed. And what simplification would cost, so that keeping an entity is a decision rather than a habit. The output is a written note per finding with the options set out.
Is it worth winding up a holding company I no longer use?
Often, but not automatically, and the cost of the wind-up is the smaller half of the question. Distributing or transferring what sits inside the entity is the part that carries tax consequences, and the order in which it is done changes them. There may also be attributes inside the company, or history that is easier to explain while the entity exists than after it has gone. Against that sits the annual cost of keeping it, the reporting it drags with it, and the risk that an entity no one is watching quietly falls out of compliance. Price both paths before deciding.
How do I know whether my group still qualifies for treaty benefits?
Test it rather than assume it. Treaty entitlement generally depends on residence in the treaty country, on the entity being the beneficial owner of the income rather than a conduit, and increasingly on the arrangement not existing principally to obtain the benefit. Those are factual questions about where decisions are taken, who bears risk, and what the entity actually does. A certificate of residence is evidence of one element, not proof of the whole. The practical test is whether you could describe the entity's activity, its people and its decisions to an authority without reaching for a diagram.
My structure was set up years ago — should someone else review it?
A second reading is useful precisely because the person who built it knows what it was meant to do, and that knowledge makes the original assumptions invisible. A reviewer starts from what the documents and filings actually say. The exercise is not an audit of the earlier adviser. It asks whether the classification, the treaty positions, the substance and the reporting still hold today and still serve what you now want. Findings are usually ordinary: an entity that has outlived its purpose, a return nobody was told to file, an intra-group charge with no written basis behind it.
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.
How do I actually stop being taxed twice?
In this order. Fix your residence under each country's own rules, and if both claim you, apply the treaty tie-breaker. Identify where each type of income is sourced. Read the article that covers that income type, because it decides who taxes and at what maximum rate. Then claim the relief on the residence-country return, with proof of the foreign tax. Most of the tax people lose to double taxation is lost at the last step, not the first. See how double taxation is relieved.
