Tax Services for U.S. citizens and Green card holders residing in Canada

it’s probably one of the most generous provisions of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code that can help exclude more than U.S. $100,000 (the amount of foreign earned income exclusion for the 2016 tax year is U.S. $100,000) of your income earned abroad. And that’s a per person exclusion, so if you’re married and your spouse works, your return could exclude over U.S. $200,000 of income from your U.S. taxable base. We have right experience and expertise in claiming this exclusion and can assist you in completing and filing Form 2555, Foreign Earned Income Exclusion with the IRS.

If you paid taxes to a foreign government, or had taxes withheld, even on passive activities (such as interest, dividends, royalties and other similar income) you may be eligible for an FTC. This is a dollar for dollar credit, which means you don’t just get to deduct your foreign taxes when calculating your U.S. taxable income (which you technically could in lieu of FTC; see immediately below), you actually get to reduce the tax itself. For example, a 100 dollars paid in Canada can result in a direct reduction of your US tax bill for the same amount. FTC can get pretty complex, with many limitations and special rules around claiming this credit, but that’s what we’re here for – to determine your tax exposure and help you in taking advantage of all available credits and deductions, including maximize the benefit of the foreign tax credit.

The United States has an extensive network of tax treaties (income tax treaties are most popular, but there are also estate and gift tax treaties, totalization agreements, and other agreements concluded between the U.S. Government or the IRS and foreign governments or foreign tax authorities, as applicable), which can be a great source for tax planning and optimization ideas. Generally, the purpose of a tax treaty, especially an income tax treaty, is to relief the taxpayer from economic double taxation. As such, understanding what treaty provision a taxpayer can rely on to reduce or eliminate double taxation, as well as the ability of the taxpayer to plan its transactions, considering potential treaty relief, are quintessential with US persons, because most US tax residents residing outside the United States or generating non-US source income (including US citizens or Green card holders) are by definition in a double tax situation, given the worldwide taxation regime in the United States. We have an experienced team who can carefully analyze the applicable US tax treaties relevant to the jurisdictions you touched in any given tax year, and provide practical recommendations and diligently develop tax positions to save you your hard-earned dollars!

Another key determination is what item of income are you receiving (for U.S. federal income tax purposes) and where each of your revenue streams should be sourced. This can get pretty complex and may not be as straightforward as you think. It’s somewhat easy to determine the nature of the payment and the source of income if we’re looking at rental income from a property located in a given country, or interest paid from a bank in another country. But consider this: you are a US national and an executive who had multiple assignments during the last five years. Let’s assume you spent two years in London, one year in Hong Kong, six months in Tokyo, a year in Moscow, and currently you are back in New York… And now imagine that a major component of your compensation package is made up of restricted stock and options, and that the vesting period extended over the same five years that you were travelling the world. This means that you earned the income from your stock options exercise that happened at the end of the period in five (!) different countries, since you were working there while the option was vesting (being “earned” in other words). That also means that you may be subject to tax in more than one jurisdiction, and you should carefully review your compensation package and plan accordingly. This is just one example of how complex sourcing and expatriate taxation can get.