Treaty-based structuring reviews — where does doing it myself start to cost money?
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 tests each entity's treaty entitlement, its limitation-on-benefits position, and whether the principal-purpose test would be satisfied.
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.
What is a treaty-based structuring review?
It tests whether the structure you already have would be granted treaty benefits today. Each entity is examined for its treaty entitlement, its limitation-on-benefits position, and whether the principal-purpose test would be satisfied on the facts as they now stand. Where the answer is no, there are two honest options: add substance so the entity earns the treatment it claims, or simplify the structure and stop claiming it. The review is not an opinion that everything is fine. It is a list of which claims would survive and which would not.
Why is my old holding structure a problem now?
Because the test changed. Structures built when treaty access was largely a paperwork question - the right certificate, the right registered office - now have to pass anti-abuse tests that look at purpose and substance. Nothing about the structure needs to have changed for it to have fallen out of line; the standard moved underneath it. That is also why a favourable opinion obtained years ago is not much comfort. It answered a question that is no longer the one being asked.
What counts as substance for treaty purposes?
In practice, the ability to show that the entity does what it claims to do. People who take decisions, in the place the entity is said to be managed. Board meetings held where the directors are, with minutes recording real deliberation rather than ratification. Functions performed, risks actually borne, and enough of a footprint to carry them. A registered address and a local director signing documents prepared elsewhere is the arrangement the anti-abuse tests were written for. Where substance is thin it is often cheaper to simplify than to construct it.
Our treaty relief was refused and nobody told us why, what now?
Start by establishing which article was in issue, because a refusal on entitlement, on a limitation-on-benefits clause and on the principal-purpose test each needs a different answer. Entitlement is often documentary. A limitation-on-benefits failure is usually structural and may not be fixable in the shape the group is in. A principal-purpose refusal is about why the arrangement exists, and it is answered with evidence of commercial reason rather than assertion. The review establishes which of the three you are facing before any submission is made.
Can we fix the structure without unwinding it?
Sometimes. Where the weakness is evidential - decisions taken in the right place but never recorded, functions performed but never documented - it can often be repaired going forward, though that rarely cures years already claimed. Where the entity performs no function anyone would pay for, adding substance means adding real cost, and the arrangement has to be worth it. What we set out is the ongoing cost of making the structure defensible against the cost of collapsing it, with the tax consequences of the change stated on both paths.
Does a good commercial reason protect our treaty claim?
It is the heart of the defence, but it has to be evidenced rather than asserted. The principal-purpose test asks what one of the principal purposes of the arrangement was, and the file that answers it is the one written when the arrangement was put in place: board papers, the alternatives considered, the commercial problem being solved. Groups that can produce that contemporaneous material are in a strong position. Groups reconstructing a rationale after the question is asked are in a much weaker one, however true the rationale happens to be.
How do I find out whether Canada has a tax treaty with a particular country?
Canada has income tax conventions in force with more than ninety jurisdictions, and the Department of Finance publishes the status of each one — in force, signed but not yet in force, or under negotiation. Read two things, not one: the treaty text, and whether the Multilateral Instrument has modified it. A treaty printed before that modification can give you the wrong answer on entitlement. See where we work.
How do I report a foreign pension on a Canadian return?
Convert the gross pension to Canadian dollars, report it as foreign pension income, and claim the foreign tax withheld as a foreign tax credit — federal and provincial computed separately. If a treaty article exempts a portion, deduct that portion on the line provided for treaty-exempt income so the return shows both the receipt and the exemption. Keep the payer's annual statement and the foreign return, because the credit is only as good as the evidence of tax paid. See the foreign tax credit.
