What makes physicians & surgeons different from an ordinary filing?
Physicians moving between systems carry a professional corporation or practice that does not travel with them: the entity remains taxable where it was resident, while the doctor becomes taxable where they now work. 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.
In what order should I file my two countries' tax returns?
Source first, residence second, as a rule. The residence country gives relief for tax properly paid to the source country, so its return cannot be finalised until the source figure is known. Doing it the other way round means claiming a credit for an estimate and amending later. Where a professional corporation is involved there is a third step, because the corporate year has to be closed before the personal return can report what was drawn from it. We work backwards from the last deadline in the chain and set an internal date for each piece.
Does my medical corporation's year end have to match my personal year?
No, and for most practice companies it does not. The corporation can take a year end that suits the practice, while your personal return follows the calendar the tax authority sets for individuals. What matters is the join between them. Salary and dividends are reported by you in the personal period in which you received them, not in the company year that generated them. A company year ending shortly before your personal year end leaves very little room to decide what to draw, so choosing that date deliberately is one of the few genuinely free choices in the calendar.
What do I file in the year I move country?
More than in an ordinary year, almost always. The country you are leaving generally wants a final return covering the part of the year you were resident, and may charge you on assets as though you had disposed of them on the way out. The country you are arriving in wants a return covering the part-year from arrival. Between the two sits income earned in the days around the move, which has to be assigned to one side and reported consistently in both. The corporation, if you have one, files on its own timetable regardless of what you did personally.
Can I file one return before the other country's figures are final?
You can, and sometimes you must, because deadlines do not wait for each other. What you should not do is file a residence-country return claiming relief for a source-country figure that is not settled, and then leave it there. If the source return moves, the credit moves with it, and an unamended residence return becomes a mismatch that surfaces later. Where timing forces an early filing, we file on the most reliable figure available, record precisely what it depends on, and diarise the amendment so it is made when the source position is fixed rather than when somebody notices.
Do I still have filing obligations after I stop practising there?
Often, yes, and this is where doctors are caught most frequently. A professional corporation left behind keeps filing until it is formally wound up, whatever it earns. Property, a partnership share, or a deferred payment from a former practice can each create a source-country return long after you have stopped seeing patients there. The departure year itself may leave an ongoing obligation attached to assets you kept. Stopping work is not the same event as ending a filing obligation, and the two are worth separating explicitly when you plan the move.
When do instalments start after I begin practising in a new country?
Generally once you have a liability that is not being withheld at source, which for a doctor usually means the first year of self-employed or corporate income in the new country. Employment income with deductions taken at source rarely triggers them. Locum work, partnership income and dividends from your own company frequently do. The obligation is commonly measured against a prior year, so the first year can pass quietly and the next arrives with the balance and a demand for instalments together. We set the instalment position at the same time as the first return, not after it.
Do I get credit for all of the foreign tax I paid?
Only up to your own country's tax on that same income, and only for tax you were legally obliged to pay. Two consequences follow. Living somewhere that taxes you more heavily than your residence country does leaves an excess that becomes a carryover rather than a refund. And withholding suffered above the treaty rate is not creditable — the route back to that money is a refund claim in the country that took it. See claiming the credit.
Which country do I pay tax to first?
Generally the source country — where the income arises — taxes first, often by withholding before you receive it. Your country of residence then taxes the same income and credits what the source country took. That order is why timing matters: a residence-country return filed before the source-country tax is settled has nothing to credit yet. Getting the sequence right is most of the work. See international tax planning.
