Personal Tax Accountant | Calgary

A personal tax accountant based in Calgary, Alberta, I specialize in international tax consulting. I provide personal tax services to Canadian and U.S. clients, both residents and non-residents of their home countries. I accept clients from Calgary, anywhere in Canada or the U.S., and other parts of the world.

My services broadly encompass tax planning and tax compliance, and I tailor these to your needs.

Minimize Your Taxes: Tax Planning

Tax planning involves working together to help you arrange your affairs so as to minimize taxes, wherever possible, and arrive at an optimal solution. For example, you may be considering a move overseas and wonder how your income tax bill would differ if you moved in the current year or sometime later. Or you may be wondering whether you should set up an offshore corporation or trust for business or investment purposes. You may want to know what is the most efficient asset holding structure for you, taking into account the income taxes imposed by all countries that would have the right to tax your activities. These are all issues that can be addressed by working with a personal international tax accountant.

It is important to undertake tax planning early to ensure that you set up your affairs in the most tax-efficient manner. While sometimes “after-the-fact” tax planning can correct poor initial tax planning, other times it is too late and cannot help much. As an accountant specializing in international tax consulting, I have seen situations with both Canadian and U.S. tax planning clients in which they engaged my services later than they should have and, as a result, ended up paying more taxes than they would have otherwise.

Timing Your Relocation to Another Country

There are different aspects to planning for a relocation from one country of residence to another. Relocation tax planning generally revolves around the issue of tax residency. Each country involved in a relocation, i.e., your current country of residence and the country to which you are contemplating a move, defines tax residency in their own way.

It is important to keep in mind that residency for tax purposes does not necessarily equate to residency for immigration purposes. Additionally, relocation may result in a major taxable event, e.g., a departure tax or exit tax. This is often misunderstood or overlooked and is one of the reasons why working with a personal tax accountant early is a very good idea.

Tax Treaties Between Countries

Further related to relocation tax planning is the potential impact of tax treaties. A tax treaty will define tax residency as agreed upon by the two countries, since you cannot be a tax resident of more than one country at a time. If a tax treaty exists between your country of residence and another country from which you receive income, the treaty will define the right of each country to tax various types of income, such as employment income, business income, investment income, capital gain income, and retirement income from pensions, Canadian RRSPs and U.S. IRAs, among others.

Engaging in tax planning with a personal international tax accountant could include tax projections, i.e., estimating your income tax under alternative scenarios. For example, you may want to know how your total tax bill from all countries will change after you relocate to another country. Through tax projection calculations we can compare your total estimated income tax under your current situation versus your total estimated income tax after your relocation. Such tax projections would include calculations of income tax levied by more than one country.

Structuring Assets

Tax planning may involve determining the best structure for your asset holdings. Is it most optimal to have your assets in your own name? in joint name with another person? in the name of a corporation? in the name of a trust? a combination of these? Determining the answers to these questions is an important part of tax planning.

Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that Canadian tax law and U.S. tax law both contain detailed rules that ensure little to no tax benefit from holding assets separately in an entity that you control (e.g., a foreign corporation or a foreign trust). This is an area where a professional tax accountant can provide clarity and advice. For example, a common misconception is that placing assets in a foreign corporation or a foreign trust will shelter the income from those assets from taxation. This is rarely true. In Canada, for example, the Foreign Accrual Property Income (FAPI) rules require income from a Canadian resident’s foreign corporation to be included in the individual’s own tax return. The U.S. rules known as the Controlled Foreign Corporation (CFC) rules accomplish much the same thing.

In general, setting up a foreign corporation or a foreign trust is done for legitimate non-tax reasons, such as for business transaction purposes, asset protection, or succession planning as part of an estate plan, in within that context tax planning is applied.

Canadian Expatriation (Departure Tax)

For expatriating Canadians, the year in which their tax status changes from resident to non-resident may result in a “departure tax” on the unrealized gain on assets owned by the individual. It can become critically important to assess how much exposure you have to the departure tax and put a plan in place to mitigate, as much as possible, the effects of the departure tax.

U.S Expatriation (Expatriation Tax)

U.S. taxpayers who are citizens do not need to worry about a special tax when they move to another country; however, non-citizens who are U.S. permanent residents (“green card holders”) and give up their residency may be subject to the U.S. expatriation tax, and if so must file Form 8854 (Initial and Annual Expatriation Statement) as part of the process of becoming a non-resident of the U.S., and may potentially be subject to an expatriation tax.

In a similar fashion, a U.S. taxpayer who renounces their citizenship may be required to file Form 8854 and may be subject to the expatriation tax as part of the process of relinquishing or renouncing their U.S. citizenship.

Tax Return Preparation and Other Tax Compliance

Tax compliance is commonly thought of as tax return preparation, but the term includes more than that. The filing of information reports on foreign activities, for example, is a type of tax compliance. A personal tax accountant can help guide you through this process.

Whether you are a Canadian resident or a U.S. taxpayer, you are probably required to file an annual income tax return, and you may also be required to file annual information reports on your international activities. The typical tax return and information reports that Canadian and U.S. taxpayers who are involved in international activities are required to file are discussed in this site’s web pages.

Specialized Tax Forms for Foreign Activity

Form T1135 and Form T1134 (Canada)
Among the foreign activity reports the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) requires of certain Canadian residents are Form T1135 (Foreign Income Verification Statement) and Form T1134 (Information Return Relating to Controlled and Non-Controlled Foreign Affiliates).

FBAR, Form 8938 and Form 5471 (USA)
U.S. individuals with foreign assets are subject to various reporting requirements. Among these are the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FinCen Form 114, known as the FBAR), IRS Form 8938 (Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets) and IRS Form 5471 (Information Return of U.S. Persons With Respect to Certain Foreign Corporations).

Purchase and Sale of Property in a Foreign Country

One area of tax compliance that can benefit from a professional tax accountant’s advice relates to the purchase or sale of real property in a foreign country. Is it best to purchase the property in individual name, joint name, the name of a corporation, or in the name of a trust? The answer to the question depends on your goals and other factors.

At the time of sale of a piece of property, what are the tax compliance obligations? In Canada, a non-resident seller of real property is generally required to pay a non-resident withholding tax and obtain a Certificate of Compliance (Form T2062 or T2062A). In the U.S., a non-resident seller is subject to the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act (FIRPTA) reporting and withholding tax rules.

Tax Savings with Special Elections

Oftentimes with international taxation the taxpayer has various options and elections available to them that may be beneficial. As an example, a non-resident of Canada who receives pension income will pay a non-resident withholding tax on that income (the tax rate is 25% unless an applicable tax treaty provides for a lower tax rate).

A Canadian non-resident subject to withholding taxes sometimes has the option of filing a special tax return to reduce the withholding tax. One such return, for example, is called a Section 217 tax return. With a Section 217 tax return, income tax on the pension income is calculated using the progressive tax rates available to residents, and tax is paid on that basis, in lieu of the withholding tax. Depending on the individual’s country of residence and other variables, this may result in tax savings.

Foreign Earned Income Exclusion and the Housing Exclusion
Another example relates to a U.S. individual’s employment income earned while working in a foreign country. Available as an election to the individual are the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion and the Housing Exclusion; these may be used to exempt some or all of the individual’s employment income from taxation. Additionally, if the individual pays taxes to the foreign country of residence, they may be entitled to a foreign tax credit on their U.S. individual income tax return.

An important question sometimes arises: is it better to claim the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion and the Housing Exclusion, or the full foreign tax credit? Depending on circumstances and various factors, in some cases the former may result in lower taxes, and in other cases the latter may result in a lower tax bill. Tax projection planning can help determine the best alternative.

Dual Citizenship (USA and Canada)

Some of my clients are dual Canadian-U.S. citizens who must deal with income tax return/information reporting obligations to both the CRA and the IRS. It can get quite confusing as to which forms must be filed and when. As an experienced accountant specializing in international tax consulting, I help you ensure that you fulfil your tax compliance obligations on a timely basis.

The GCG Tax Advantage

Through my experience I have found that the great majority of personal tax accountants, both in Canada and in the U.S., have limited knowledge of international tax rules. This is understandable because most accountants do not deal with international taxation issues very frequently. While some of my clients hire me for all of their tax consulting needs, others hire me for their international tax needs while continuing to work with their own accountant for domestic tax issues. Still others like to prepare drafts of their tax returns themselves and have me review those returns before they are filed. Any of these arrangements are fine.

In addition to tax planning and tax compliance work based on individual taxation (e.g., Form T1 tax return preparation for Canadians and Form 1040 tax return preparation for U.S. clients), I also provide corporate and trust tax planning and compliance services.

For a business-oriented client who conducts business through a corporation, a holistic approach that takes into account both individual and corporate taxation an important aspect of sound tax planning. Similarly, for a client who has one or more trusts as part of their asset structure, holistic tax planning and compliance is very important.

How it Works

To work together, the first step is to contact me for an initial consultation via a video conference call. I accept clients here in Calgary from other parts of Canada and the United States. Subsequent to our initial meeting whatever documents I need from you to perform my work I arrange for you to send me through my secure portal page (the web address to which I will provide you). For communication that does not involve confidential information, regular email will work fine.

For tax return and other tax compliance filings that require your signature, in most cases I arrange to have you sign the documents online, through my secure portal page, eliminating the need to meet in person for signing purposes. Some clients who live in Calgary or the vicinity, or clients who travel through the area, like to meet in person; I am happy to do so.

For new clients who wish to have an initial consultation, I arrange for us to meet in a video conference call. The fee for this initial consultation is billed at my hourly rate with a one-hour minimum. You will receive a credit for one-half of this initial fee, applied against any follow-up work that you ask of me. For more details, contact me through my email address shown on this web page.

Do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about my services as a personal tax accountant or anything else you read about on this web site. All the best and I hope to meet you soon.