What makes software developers different from an ordinary filing?
A developer working remotely for a foreign employer can create a taxable presence for that employer in the country where the code is written — which turns a personal arrangement into the employer's problem. 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.
Am I paying tax twice on the same salary?
Quite possibly, and relief is rarely automatic. Where two countries both tax the same employment income, relief comes either from a treaty article giving one of them the exclusive right, or from a credit in your country of residence for the tax the other country charged. Both routes have to be claimed on a return, with the foreign tax properly evidenced. The usual failures are claiming credit for tax withheld rather than tax finally assessed, claiming in the wrong year because the two tax years do not align, and never claiming at all because a foreign employer's withholding was assumed to be the end of the matter.
Can a treaty stop my employer having a taxable presence here?
Sometimes, and it is worth testing rather than assuming the worst. Treaty presence articles are narrower than domestic law: they generally need a fixed place of business at the enterprise's disposal, or a person habitually concluding contracts, or playing the principal role leading to the conclusion of contracts, on the enterprise's behalf. A developer writing code in a spare room, with no authority to bind the employer and no customer-facing role, may sit outside that. The facts decide it: who provides the space, what the role involves, whether anything is negotiated. Get the analysis written down while the facts are fresh, because it is worth little reconstructed years later.
Is there relief for tax already withheld abroad?
There is, but withholding is not the same thing as the tax finally due, and that distinction is where relief gets lost. A credit is generally given for the foreign tax properly payable under that country's law as limited by the treaty, not for whatever was deducted at source. If too much was withheld, the excess is recovered from the country that withheld it, by filing there, rather than credited at home. That means two claims in sequence and in the right order, and a resident-country return reflecting the final foreign position rather than the provisional figure printed on a payslip.
My option gain was taxed in full in one country — is that right?
Often not, where the work behind the award spanned two countries. The usual approach apportions the gain by reference to where the duties were performed over the period the award was earned, so a country that hosted only part of that period should be taxing only part of the gain. Taxation of the whole amount in one place normally happens because a payroll system applied the only rule it knew. Correcting it means establishing the working history over the earning period, reclaiming the over-taxed portion where the period for amendment is still open, and making sure the other country's return reflects the same split rather than a second version of it.
Can I claim relief for a year I have already filed?
Usually yes, within the window each country allows for amending a return, and sometimes on a longer window where the claim depends on a foreign assessment that only arrived later. Several systems recognise that a credit cannot be quantified until the other country has finished, and allow extra time for exactly that. The practical steps are to identify which years remain open in each country, to obtain the foreign assessment in a form your own authority accepts as evidence, and to amend both sides so they tell the same story. Leaving one amended and the other untouched is how a well-founded claim gets refused.
Does the exchange rate I use change what relief I get?
It can change the amount, and an inconsistent basis can cost the claim outright. Foreign income and the foreign tax paid on it both have to be converted on a basis your own system accepts, and the same basis has to be used for both: converting income at one date and the tax at another quietly changes the credit. Where a credit is limited to the home-country tax on that income, the conversion basis decides whether part of the foreign tax falls outside the limit and is lost for good. Choose the prescribed basis, apply it across the whole year, and keep the rates and their source.
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.
What is a double tax treaty and what does it actually do?
It is an agreement between two countries that divides up the right to tax. Article by article it decides which country taxes employment income, dividends, interest, royalties, pensions, property and business profits — and where both may tax, it caps what the source country can withhold and tells the other to give credit. It also breaks residence ties and opens a government-to-government channel for disputes. What it never does is apply itself: a treaty position is claimed. See our treaty work.
