What makes oil & gas rotational workers different from an ordinary filing?
Rotational work is a day-count problem by design: an equal-time rotation puts a worker in a host country for roughly half the year, which is exactly where residency tests and treaty employment articles turn. An ordinary preparer applies the general rule and stops there, which is how the relief in the specific provision goes unclaimed.
Can you work with my existing accountant?
That is how most of these engagements run. They keep the domestic file, we take the cross-border piece, and the boundary is agreed in writing so nothing is done twice or missed.
How much does a cross-border return for a rotational worker cost?
It depends on how many countries have a claim on your income, how many years are open and how complete your records are, so the honest answer is that we price it after reading your papers rather than before. What is fixed is the way it is done. You send what you have, we tell you what the engagement involves, and the fee is agreed in writing before any work begins. If the scope turns out to be larger than the documents suggested, we come back to you with a revised figure and your agreement, rather than adding to an invoice at the end.
Do you charge by the hour or a fixed fee?
A fixed fee, agreed in writing before the work starts. Hourly billing puts the risk of a complicated file on the client, and rotational cases are exactly the sort that take longer than they first appear: a residency question that turns on travel days, or a year that cannot be settled until an assessment arrives from the other country. Pricing the engagement up front means that risk sits with us. Where the work genuinely changes scope, for instance if further unfiled years come to light, we agree a revised fee before continuing.
What makes one rotational worker's fee higher than another's?
Four things, mostly. The number of countries with a claim on your income; the number of tax years to be brought current; whether residency is settled or has to be argued under a treaty tie-breaker; and the state of your records, because a reconstructed day log takes far longer than a contemporaneous one. A clean year with clear rosters and a single host country is a small piece of work. Several open years across two host countries, with employer payroll to reconcile, is not. We tell you which of these apply to you when we quote.
Is the quote really fixed before you start work?
Yes. The written quote sets out what is included, what is not, and what we need from you. Once you accept it, that is the fee for that scope. It changes only if the scope does, for instance if a further year surfaces or a second country turns out to have a claim, and then we agree a revised figure in writing before doing anything further. Work outside the agreed scope is quoted before it is done, never billed afterwards.
Does bringing several unfiled years current cost more?
Yes, though usually less per year than filing them separately would. Much of the work in a multi-year file is done once: the residency analysis, the reconstruction of the rotations, the decision on which country each element of earnings belongs to. The remaining years then largely follow from it. That is also why filing them as one set produces a better result, because the years agree with one another. When we quote a multi-year engagement we price the analysis once and the returns individually, and the quote shows both.
What do you need from me before you can quote?
Whatever you already hold. Typically that is your contract or agency agreement, your rosters or crew change dates for the years in question, your payslips or year-end statements from each country, and anything you have received from a tax authority. If a year is missing entirely, say so. An unfiled year is a normal part of these files, not something to tidy up before asking. We read what you send, tell you what else is needed, and put the fee in writing. The phone number is +1 (416) 619-0068.
What is double taxation?
Double taxation means the same income being taxed by two authorities. It comes in two forms: juridical, where two countries each tax one person on one amount, and economic, where two different people are taxed on the same underlying profit — a company on its earnings and a shareholder on the dividend paid out of them. Relief comes from a treaty, a foreign tax credit, or an exemption, and which one applies depends on the income type. How to avoid double taxation sets out the routes.
Do American citizens living abroad have to pay taxes?
American expats and green card holders need to file US returns for life, and many of them pay little or no US tax once the relief is applied — but the filing is what unlocks the relief, so the two questions have different answers. The exclusion for foreign earned income, the credit for foreign tax already paid and the treaty between the two countries between them usually leave the total at roughly the higher of the two countries' tax rather than the sum. Skip the return and none of it applies. See Americans abroad.
