Second opinion on a filed return — 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: the review re-derives the residency conclusion, re-computes the credits by category and country, and lists the information returns the facts required.
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 do I know whether my cross-border return was done correctly?
You generally cannot tell from the return itself, because the things that go wrong on cross-border filings are omissions rather than errors on the face of the document. A return can be arithmetically perfect and still rest on the wrong residency conclusion, claim relief for foreign tax in the wrong category, or leave out an information report the facts required. A review re-derives the position rather than checking the arithmetic. That is the difference worth paying for: someone re-deciding the residency question from your circumstances, recomputing the credits by category and country, and listing the reports your facts called for.
Can someone review a return another accountant has already filed?
Yes, and it is ordinary work rather than an accusation against the previous preparer. Most cross-border returns are prepared quickly from a questionnaire, and the facts that change the answer are often the ones nobody thought to ask about. A review starts from your circumstances rather than from the filed return, then compares the two, which is why it finds things a second pass over the same figures would not. What comes out of it is a written account of where the return stands, which is as useful when the answer is that it was correct as when it is not.
What do second opinions usually find on cross-border returns?
Three things turn up more often than anything else. An unclaimed or wrongly computed foreign tax credit, usually because the income was not separated by category and country before the relief was worked out. A missing information return, which is the omission with the longest tail because it is often penalised separately from the tax. And a treaty position taken without the disclosure that goes with it, where the answer on the return may well be right but the way it was claimed leaves it exposed. The residency conclusion underneath all three is the fourth thing, and the one that changes the most when it is wrong.
Should I amend the return or make a voluntary disclosure?
That is a separate decision from the review, and it should be taken after the review rather than during it. An amendment and a disclosure are different routes with different consequences, and which is appropriate depends on what was wrong, how it came to be wrong, whether information reports were missed as well as tax, and whether the authority has already been in touch. Deciding the route before the full extent is known is the common mistake, because an amendment filed in isolation can foreclose an option that would have covered more. Establish the whole position first, then choose.
Does a review cover information returns as well as the tax return?
It should, and a review that stops at the tax return is only doing part of the job. The reporting obligations attached to foreign accounts, foreign assets and interests in foreign entities run alongside the return rather than inside it, and they are frequently the part that was missed, particularly where a preparer was not told about a holding that produced no income that year. A proper review lists the information returns your facts required for each year in scope and compares that list against what was actually filed. The gap between those two lists is usually where the real exposure sits.
I moved countries mid-year, was my residency treated correctly?
That is the single most valuable thing to have re-derived, because everything else on the return follows from it. Arrival and departure years are where preparers most often apply a default assumption, treating the whole year on one basis when the facts called for the year to be split, or fixing the date from the flight rather than from the ties. If the residency conclusion is wrong, the income included, the relief claimed and the reports required are all wrong with it. A review re-derives that conclusion from your circumstances before it looks at any figure on the return.
What is a foreign trust for US tax purposes?
A trust that is not a domestic trust — broadly, one that fails the tests looking at whether a US court can exercise primary supervision and whether US persons control the substantial decisions. The classification decides everything downstream: whether the settlor is taxed on the income as owner, how distributions to US beneficiaries are taxed, and which annual information returns are due. Many ordinary foreign arrangements, including some pension and education savings vehicles, land inside the definition. See Form 3520-A.
What has to be reported on a T1135?
Specified foreign property held by a Canadian resident where the total cost exceeds the threshold at any time in the year: funds in foreign bank accounts, shares of non-resident corporations — including those held in a Canadian brokerage account — foreign real estate other than personal-use property, debts owed by non-residents, interests in foreign trusts, and foreign life insurance. Property inside a registered plan is excluded, as is property used in an active business. It reports property, not income. See the T1135.
