What makes amazon fba sellers different from an ordinary filing?
Fulfilment inventory stored in another country is physical presence, which can create both an indirect-tax registration obligation and a permanent-establishment question for the seller's own company. 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 do you price a return when my stock sits in several countries?
We price from the shape of the file, not from turnover. Two things move the number: how many countries hold your inventory, and how many of those already have a registration in place. Send the inventory placement and settlement reports the marketplace gives you, we read them, and the fee is set in writing before any work begins. If the reports show stock in a country nobody has looked at yet, we say so in the quote rather than discovering it halfway through and repricing. A seller on one marketplace with one fulfilment country pays the least, because there is one set of returns to reconcile.
Does a quote cover the years I never filed, or only this year?
They are priced separately, because they are different pieces of work. The current year is a preparation job from reports you already hold. Earlier years mean reconstructing where inventory sat in each of those periods, deciding which registrations should have existed and from when, and choosing how to approach each authority. We scope the back years once we have seen the inventory history, and the quote names the countries and the periods it covers. Nothing is prepared before you have that in writing.
Why is my fee higher than another seller with the same sales?
Because sales are not what makes the work. A seller turning over a large amount through one country's warehouses is a simpler file than a smaller seller whose stock has been moved across four. Each country where inventory has been stored is a separate registration question, a separate return cycle and a separate reconciliation against the marketplace's own reports. The company's own position adds to that if a warehouse country has a claim on the profits and not only on the sales tax. We tell you which of these is driving your number.
Can you give me a price before I hand over my seller reports?
Not a reliable one. We can talk through the shape of the business on the phone, and the number is +1 (416) 619-0068, but a written fixed fee comes after we have read the reports. The inventory placement history is the document that decides most of the price, and sellers often do not know what is in it: stock gets moved between fulfilment centres by the marketplace, sometimes into countries the seller never chose to sell into. We would rather read it first and quote once.
Is the tax the marketplace collects included in what you file for me?
It is accounted for, but it does not replace your filing. Where a marketplace is made responsible for collecting on a sale, that collection has to be reconciled against your own return so the authority can see which sales were covered and which were not. Sales you made off the platform, stock movements between countries, and the periods before the marketplace took on the role are all yours. That reconciliation is part of the fee. It is also the part where gaps usually surface, which is why we ask for full-period reports rather than a summary.
What happens to the fee if the work turns out bigger than expected?
The written fee stands for the work it describes. If we find something outside it, such as an unregistered country in the inventory history or a question about where the company's profits are taxable rather than only its sales, we stop, tell you what we have found and quote that separately. You decide whether it goes ahead. The one thing we will not do is carry on quietly and present a larger invoice at the end. The scope is written down at the start precisely so both sides can see when something has moved outside it.
Can I avoid capital gains tax on a foreign property?
Not by virtue of it being foreign — there is no exemption for that, and the "keep it offshore" advice you may have read is how people acquire penalties rather than savings. What genuinely reduces the gain is ordinary and legitimate: principal residence relief where the property qualifies and the designation is made correctly, a properly built cost base including acquisition costs and capital improvements, the timing of the disposition, the treaty rules for real property, and credit for the foreign tax paid. See principal residence and foreign property.
Do I have to file in both countries?
Frequently yes, and the two filings do different jobs. The country where the income arises taxes it at source; the country where you are resident taxes your worldwide income and then gives credit for the tax already paid. Filing only one side is what leaves relief unclaimed — the credit has to be asked for on a return. We prepare both sides so the numbers agree. See dual filing.
