US citizen in Canada — filing US taxes from abroad: 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: Canadian tax paid generally becomes a credit against the US tax on the same income, and because Canadian rates on employment income are usually the higher of the two, most long-term residents settle with the IRS at little or nothing.
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 still have to file US taxes if I live in Canada?
Yes. The United States taxes on citizenship, so the return falls due every year no matter how long you have lived in Canada or whether any US tax is payable at the end of it. Canada taxes you separately, because you are resident here. Most long-term residents finish the US calculation owing little or nothing, since Canadian tax on employment income is generally the higher of the two and that tax becomes a credit against the US liability on the same income. The duty to file survives the arithmetic, and it carries the foreign-account and foreign-asset reports along with it.
Which return should be prepared first, the Canadian one or the American?
The Canadian one, in most cases. The credit that stops the same income being taxed twice is claimed on the US return and measured by the Canadian tax actually paid on that income, so the Canadian figures have to be settled before the US return can be finished properly. Preparers who work the other way round tend to estimate and then amend. Where the order genuinely runs the other way, because of US-source income for instance, that is a decision taken deliberately at the start of the file rather than discovered halfway through it.
Will I be taxed twice on the same Canadian salary?
Not if the two returns are prepared as one exercise. Canadian tax paid on the salary generally becomes a credit against the US tax on the same income, and because Canadian rates on employment income are usually the higher of the two, the credit commonly absorbs the US liability entirely. Double taxation in practice comes from the mechanics rather than the principle: income sourced to the wrong country, a credit claimed in the wrong year, or a category mismatch between two systems that do not define income in quite the same way. Those are the parts worth getting right.
I left the United States as a child, so am I still taxed there?
Citizenship is what matters, not where you grew up and not whether a US passport is sitting in your drawer. Someone born in the United States who left as an infant and has never worked there remains a US citizen for tax purposes unless that citizenship has been formally given up. The same holds for a green card that was never surrendered. The practical consequence is usually a filing history that does not exist at all, which is a solvable problem and a different piece of work from an ordinary annual return.
My bank asked me to confirm US status, so what does that mean?
Financial institutions outside the United States are required to identify account holders who are US persons and to report them. A request of that kind is the point at which many people discover the question applies to them: a US birthplace on file, a former green card, an old US address in the records. Answering it accurately matters, because the information reaches the US authorities either way. If the answer is yes and no US returns have ever been filed, the thing to deal with is the filing position, not the form in front of you.
If I owe the IRS nothing, do I still have to file?
Yes. The return is required by the fact of citizenship, not by the balance at the bottom of it. The two get confused because the credit for Canadian tax reduces the US liability to nothing for most people in employment here, which is the return doing its job rather than evidence that no return was needed. The foreign-account and foreign-asset reports run on their own rules as well, and those can fall due in a year where the income itself is modest.
What is the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion?
It lets a US person working abroad exclude a capped amount of foreign *earned* income — wages and self-employment profit, not investment income — from US income tax, claimed on Form 2555. You qualify through either the physical presence test or the bona fide residence test, and you must have a tax home abroad. The cap is indexed annually, so it is read off the form for the year you are filing. See Form 2555.
How do I report foreign employment income with no W-2?
A foreign employer does not issue one, and none is required. You report the wages from your own records — payslips, the employment contract, and the foreign tax assessment or return, which is the document a reviewer finds most persuasive — converted to your own currency. Keep the foreign filing with the return, because it is also the proof of foreign tax paid that supports the credit or the exclusion you are claiming. See a US return from abroad.
