Canadian with foreign inheritance — 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: the inheritance itself is a capital receipt, but the assets received enter the Canadian system at their value on death and become part of your foreign-property reporting from that point.
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.
Do I pay Canadian tax on an inheritance from abroad?
The receipt itself is generally not income. Canada taxes the deceased rather than the beneficiary, and where the deceased was not Canadian there is usually nothing for Canada to tax on the transfer at all. What changes is everything after the receipt. From the moment the assets are yours, the income they produce is yours to report, they count towards your foreign property reporting, and any later sale is measured against the value they had when you inherited them. The work sits in the years that follow, not in the year the money arrives.
What is my cost base on shares I inherited overseas?
Ordinarily the value on the date of death, converted to Canadian dollars. That figure decides the gain on every later sale, so it is worth fixing while it can still be evidenced. A quoted security can be established from the market records for that date. An unquoted company, a flat or a plot of land generally needs a valuation obtained at the time; obtaining one years later, when the sale has already happened, is far harder and far easier for an assessor to challenge. Keep the probate papers, the valuation and the exchange rate used together in one file.
Does an inherited property abroad go on form T1135?
It depends on what the property is used for rather than on how you came by it. Specified foreign property reporting reaches assets held to earn income and excludes property held for your own personal use, so a holiday flat the family uses and the same flat let to a tenant are treated differently. Use can change, and the reporting changes with it. Foreign bank accounts, shares in a foreign company and amounts owed to you are the categories that often catch a new beneficiary out, because the test is applied across everything you hold rather than to any single asset.
The estate abroad is still open, do I report anything yet?
Generally not until you have an entitlement rather than an expectation. An estate in administration is a separate person for tax purposes in most systems, and while it is open the income belongs to the estate, not to you. Once assets are distributed, or once you have a fixed right to them, they enter your own position. The distinction matters for reporting deadlines, so ask the executor to date the distribution clearly and to state what the assets were worth on death and what income arose in the estate before you received them.
What happens if the inheritance comes through a foreign trust?
The structure decides the answer, so it has to be read before anything is reported. A trust that continues after the death is a separate taxpayer with its own rules, and whether what you receive is a capital distribution or a share of income is a question about the trust deed and the trustees' resolutions, not about what the bank transfer looks like. Canadian rules can also treat some foreign trusts as though they were resident here where a Canadian beneficiary has contributed or is connected in particular ways. Get the deed, the accounts and the resolutions before drawing a conclusion.
Which exchange rate applies to an inherited foreign asset?
Two dates matter and they are easy to confuse. The value that becomes your cost is converted at the rate on the date of death. A later sale is converted at the rate on the date of sale. The difference between those two rates forms part of your Canadian gain or loss even if the asset never moved in its own currency, which is why a property sold abroad for exactly what it was worth on death can still produce a taxable gain here. Record both rates and the source you took them from at the time.
Do I need real estate tax specialists if what I inherited is a property abroad?
You need someone who handles both ends of it, which is what the specialists on this file do. Canada does not levy an inheritance tax, so the receipt itself is generally not taxed here — but the estate may have been taxed where the deceased lived, the property keeps producing income that is taxable to you from the date you inherit, foreign property above the reporting threshold has to be disclosed on your Canadian return, and the cost base you will need on a future sale is set now, by a valuation nobody can reconstruct later.
Can I avoid capital gains tax on a foreign property?
Not by virtue of it being foreign — there is no exemption for that, and the "keep it offshore" advice you may have read is how people acquire penalties rather than savings. What genuinely reduces the gain is ordinary and legitimate: principal residence relief where the property qualifies and the designation is made correctly, a properly built cost base including acquisition costs and capital improvements, the timing of the disposition, the treaty rules for real property, and credit for the foreign tax paid. See principal residence and foreign property.
