What makes professors & lecturers different from an ordinary filing?
Many treaties contain a professors-and-teachers article that exempts remuneration for a limited period from arrival — and the period does not restart for a second appointment in the same country. 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.
My university says my first years are exempt, is that true?
It may be, but the exemption comes from a treaty article rather than from university policy, and the department that told you is rarely the department that can cite it. Many treaties carry a professors-and-teachers article exempting remuneration for teaching or research for a limited period. Whether it applies to you depends on which treaty is in play, what the article actually covers, and when your period began. We read the article that governs your situation and tell you what it supports, which is sometimes less than the faculty office believes.
Which treaty article covers visiting professors?
Not every treaty has one. Where it exists, the professors-and-teachers article sits separately from the employment article and exempts remuneration for teaching or research at a recognised institution for a limited period measured from arrival. The scope varies between treaties: some cover research only where it is in the public interest, some exclude research undertaken primarily for private benefit, and some cover teaching alone. Because the wording differs, the answer for a colleague who moved between two other countries tells you nothing reliable about your own position.
Does the exemption restart if I return for a second appointment?
Generally not. The period runs from arrival and is not designed to be taken twice in the same country, so a second appointment usually draws on whatever remains rather than starting a fresh period. That catches academics who left, spent time elsewhere, and returned to the same institution years later expecting the same treatment as the first visit. Establishing where the period actually stands means fixing the original arrival date and working forward from it, which is the first thing we do on a file of this kind.
I have grants from three countries, do they all go on one return?
They have to be accounted for somewhere, and a single return that mentions only the domestic one is incomplete regardless of how small the others are. Each award may be characterised differently, may be taxable in the country that made it, and may attract relief in the country where you are resident. Reporting obligations can also attach to the foreign accounts the money is paid into. We take each award separately, establish where it is taxable, and then build one coherent set of returns rather than one return that ignores two of them.
Does a sabbatical abroad end my tax residency?
Sometimes, and it is not decided by the length of the sabbatical alone. Residency turns on the ties you keep and the ties you form, and treaty tie-breaker tests look at a permanent home, the centre of vital interests and habitual abode before nationality is ever reached. A sabbatical where the family stays, the house stays and the post is held open often changes nothing; one where the household moves may change everything. The point to settle is which it was, before the return is prepared rather than afterwards.
What happens if the exemption period ends part-way through a contract?
The exemption stops when the period expires, even though the appointment continues and the payslip does not change. Income after that date is taxable in the ordinary way, and where payroll was never told, an underpayment builds quietly across the rest of the contract. Some treaties go further and withdraw the relief retrospectively if the stay exceeds the permitted period, which makes the end date worth knowing well before you reach it. We calculate it at the start of the engagement and tell you what happens on the day it passes.
How do families with assets in two countries handle inheritance?
With paperwork built for both systems rather than one. In practice that means wills that work where each asset actually sits, an executor with authority a foreign bank or land registry will accept, clearance certificates before the estate distributes so the executor is not left personally exposed, and an estate tax exposure calculation done while the person is alive and can still act on it. Doing it afterwards costs more and forecloses most of the options. See cross-border wills and trusts.
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.
