Regulation 102 waiver — 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: a waiver removes the withholding where the treaty exemption applies, and a certification route exists for qualifying non-resident employers.
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 we withhold Canadian payroll tax for staff visiting Canada for a week?
The starting position is that a foreign employer owes Canadian payroll withholding on the Canadian workdays, however short the trip. The obligation attaches to the employer, and it attaches whether or not the employee will ultimately owe any Canadian tax once the treaty is applied. That is the trap: people reason from the treaty exemption backwards and conclude there is nothing to do, when the exemption relieves the employee's liability rather than the employer's withholding duty. Relief from the withholding itself has to be arranged separately, and it has to be arranged before the workdays happen.
How do we get a waiver before an employee travels to Canada?
By applying in advance, with the facts of the particular assignment: who the employee is, who employs and pays them, where they are resident, what they will do in Canada, and over what period. The application sets out why the treaty exemption applies to that employee, and the waiver relieves the withholding on that basis. The critical feature is that it is prospective. It is arranged before the assignment rather than reconciled after it, so the lead time has to sit in the travel planning rather than in the payroll run that follows.
What is a qualifying non-resident employer certification?
It is the alternative route. Rather than applying for a waiver for each employee and each assignment, an employer can seek certification and then, for employees who meet the conditions, pay without the Canadian withholding. It suits an employer with a recurring pattern of short Canadian trips, where per-assignment applications become unmanageable. It is not a lighter option in every respect: certification brings its own conditions and its own tracking and reporting obligations, and an employer who cannot evidence which employees worked which days in Canada will struggle to rely on it.
Can we apply for a waiver after the assignment is finished?
No, and this is the point at which most enquiries reach us. Both the waiver and the certification route operate prospectively; neither reaches back over withholding that should already have been made. Where the days have passed, the position becomes one of establishing what should have been withheld and remitted, dealing with that as the employer's exposure, and separately recovering the employee's position through a Canadian return where the treaty exemption applies. It is a longer and more expensive path to the same destination than the application would have been.
Does the treaty exemption remove the withholding automatically?
It does not. The treaty decides whether the employee is ultimately taxable in Canada on the employment income. The withholding duty sits on the employer under domestic Canadian rules and continues to apply until it is relieved, either by a waiver for that employee and assignment or through the certification route. So an employee can be fully exempt under the treaty while the employer is simultaneously in default for not withholding. Keeping those two questions apart is the whole of the practical discipline here.
Who is liable if Canadian withholding on visiting employees is missed?
The employer. Withholding obligations attach to the party paying the employment income, so a shortfall is the foreign employer's exposure rather than the employee's, even where the employee's own Canadian position is clean because the treaty exempts them. Any Canadian entity that has been recharged the cost of the assignment may also find itself drawn into the question of who the real employer was. That is one reason the recharge arrangements are worth reading at the same time as the assignment letters, rather than treating them as a separate accounting matter.
What is the MLI, and could it have changed my treaty?
The Multilateral Instrument is a single convention that amends many bilateral treaties at once, so countries did not have to renegotiate each one. Where both countries adopted a provision, it overrides the older text — most consequentially a principal-purpose test that can deny a benefit where obtaining it was a main reason for the arrangement. Reading the original treaty alone is therefore not safe. See our treaty work.
Is dividend income from Indian shares taxable for an NRI?
Yes. Dividends are taxed in the shareholder's hands, and the paying company withholds on payment to a non-resident. The treaty can reduce that withholding, but only if the documents are with the company before it pays: a tax residency certificate from your country, Form 10F, and a PAN on the register. Without them the domestic rate applies and your route back to the difference is a refund claim on an Indian return. See residency certificates and Form 10F.
