Canadian with an offshore account — 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: voluntary disclosure gives relief that is unavailable once the CRA has begun to act, and the relief tier depends on how the failure arose.
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.
My foreign bank says my account was reported to the CRA — what now?
Treat the letter as a starting date rather than an outcome. Under automatic information exchange the bank tells its own authority, which passes the account details on, so the CRA may hold your balances and income long before any assessment is raised. What matters next is who raises the subject first. A disclosure made before the CRA has begun to act attracts relief that is not available afterwards, and preparing one means reconstructing each affected year rather than sending a letter of explanation. Start by gathering statements for every year the account has been open.
Can I still come forward if the CRA has already contacted me?
It depends on what the contact was. Relief through voluntary disclosure is built for taxpayers who come forward before the CRA has begun to act on the matter, and an enquiry naming the account or the years usually closes that door. A general questionnaire may not. The practical step is to establish what the CRA already holds and in what form, then decide whether the file is a disclosure or a correction defended on its own facts. Either way the unfiled years still have to be prepared, and each one carries exposure of its own.
How many years of unreported foreign accounts do I have to fix?
Far enough back that the picture is complete rather than convenient. Each unfiled year carries penalty exposure of its own, so a partial correction leaves the compounding problem in place and invites a question about why the line was drawn where it was. In practice we work from when the account was opened or when it first became reportable, whichever is later, and prepare every year in between. Where records are missing the bank can usually reissue statements; where it cannot, the reconstruction and the basis for it are documented on the file.
My previous accountant said the offshore account did not need reporting — am I liable?
You remain responsible for the return you signed, but how the failure arose is not irrelevant. The relief available on a disclosure is tiered, and the tier turns on the circumstances of the original omission: advice you were given in writing, the questions you were asked, whether the account was mentioned to the preparer at all. Keep that correspondence. It is evidence, and it is the difference between a file that reads as an oversight and one that does not.
The offshore account is small — is it still worth disclosing?
Size and exposure are not the same measure. Reporting obligations for foreign holdings attach to the account rather than to the tax it generates, so an account producing very little income can still carry a penalty for every year it went unreported. That is the compounding effect: the number of years drives the exposure more than the balance does. A small, long-standing account is a common shape of file here, and correcting it is usually the cheaper end of the decision.
Will disclosing an offshore account trigger a review of my other years?
A disclosure is not a confession to everything, but it is read alongside what you have already filed, so it is worth knowing what else is in the file before anything goes in. We review the returns for the years being corrected as a whole rather than only the account, because an inconsistency found later is far harder to explain than one corrected at the outset. Where other items need adjusting they go in with the same submission rather than following it.
What is the penalty for a late T1135 or a missed FBAR?
Both are penalty regimes attached to the form rather than to any tax, which is why people who owed nothing still face them. The Canadian foreign property statement carries a per-month penalty with much larger amounts for a failure that continues or is made knowingly; the US account report is separate again and pivots on whether the failure was wilful. Relief exists — voluntary disclosure, reasonable cause, taxpayer relief — and it narrows once the authority makes contact. The reporting trigger on the US side is an aggregate balance over $10,000 at any point in the year. See late T1135 penalty relief.
Do I need to report a foreign business I own?
Almost certainly, and on more than one form. Canada requires reporting of foreign affiliates on the T1134; the United States has a family of returns keyed to the entity type and your level of control, and several carry penalties that apply whether or not any tax is owed. These are information returns, so the obligation follows the ownership rather than the profit. See T1134.
