Tax when citizenship is granted — do I need an adviser, or can I do it alone?
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: Canada taxes on residence, so citizenship is not a taxing connection.
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.
Does becoming a Canadian citizen change my tax situation?
No. Canada taxes on residence, so citizenship is not a taxing connection at all. If you were resident before the ceremony you are resident after it, and if you were not, the certificate does not make you one. This surprises people who assume the two move together, and it matters most for those who take citizenship and then leave: the passport does not keep you inside the Canadian tax system, and cutting ties is what ends residence. The status is worth having for many reasons. A change in your tax position is not one of them.
Does US citizenship mean I file US tax returns forever?
For as long as you hold it, yes, wherever you live. The United States taxes citizens on worldwide income by reference to the passport rather than the address, which is the opposite of how most systems work. Moving abroad does not suspend it and time does not extinguish it. Relief exists to stop the same income being taxed twice, but it is claimed on a return that has to be filed in order to claim it. The obligation ends only through a formal expatriation, which is a regime of its own with its own consequences.
My child was born in the US, are they a US taxpayer?
If the birth conferred citizenship then the tax obligation came with it, regardless of where the child has lived since. Families often discover this when the child opens a first bank account abroad, applies for a mortgage or starts a business, because financial institutions ask. There is no age at which it begins; what changes with age is whether there is income to report. The practical question is what to do about the years already passed, and that is a decision to take deliberately rather than by continuing to do nothing.
Can I stop being a US citizen for tax purposes?
Only by formal expatriation, which is an immigration act with a tax regime attached to it. It is not the same as letting a passport expire, moving away, or taking another nationality. Because the consequences are settled by the rules in force when it happens and by what you own at that moment, the sequence matters: the modelling belongs before the appointment, not after it. People who reverse that order sometimes find the outcome would have been materially different had a different year been chosen.
Do I pay tax twice if I hold citizenship of both countries?
Not usually, but you file in both and the relief has to be claimed in the right place. Canada's claim follows your residence and the United States' follows your citizenship, so the two can arise at once. The treaty and the credit rules then decide which country taxes an item first and which gives credit for the other's tax. That machinery works when the two returns are prepared together. Prepared apart in different offices, the common failures are relief claimed against the wrong country's tax and the same income characterised differently on each side.
I took citizenship years ago and never filed, what now?
The position is more common than people think, and doing nothing is the option that gets worse with time. The first step is factual: which years are involved, what income arose in each, and what accounts or interests would have been reportable. Once that is on paper, the choice between the available routes back into compliance can be made on evidence rather than on anxiety. What we would not do is file a single year and hope, because a return arriving on its own tells a revenue authority about the years around it.
What is a double tax treaty and what does it actually do?
It is an agreement between two countries that divides up the right to tax. Article by article it decides which country taxes employment income, dividends, interest, royalties, pensions, property and business profits — and where both may tax, it caps what the source country can withhold and tells the other to give credit. It also breaks residence ties and opens a government-to-government channel for disputes. What it never does is apply itself: a treaty position is claimed. See our treaty work.
What is a permanent establishment, and how easily do we create one?
A taxable presence in another country under the treaty — typically a fixed place of business such as an office, branch, factory or workshop, or a dependent agent habitually concluding contracts on your behalf. Some treaties add a services test measured in days. Purely preparatory or auxiliary activity is excluded, but that carve-out is narrower than it sounds: one senior employee working from home in the other country, with authority, has been enough. See business profits and permanent establishment.
