U.S. Tax and Cross-Border Tax Services for Individuals

We help indi­vid­u­als with their U.S. tax and inter­na­tion­al tax plan­ning and com­pli­ance needs. Cana­di­ans who work in the Unit­ed States or have U.S. source income, be it from a U.S. real prop­er­ty they rent or their invest­ments, often are faced with U.S. tax and cross-bor­der tax issues that, if not addressed, may lead to dou­ble tax­a­tion or high­er tax­es and penal­ties.

By the same token, U.S. cit­i­zens and Green card hold­ers who live in Cana­da or out­side the Unit­ed States are faced with much more com­plex inter­na­tion­al tax rules and are not always able to resolve those issues on their own. When­ev­er you are involved in a cross-bor­der trans­ac­tion, we are here to help you tack­le your U.S. tax and cross-bor­der tax com­pli­ance and plan­ning needs.

Individual U.S. Tax Planning

• Treaty posi­tions, Plan­ning, Income Char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and Sourc­ing of Income
• Per­son­al and Invest­ment Real Estate Prop­er­ties in the U.S. and Abroad
• Tax Plan­ning and Com­pli­ance for Cana­di­an Res­i­dents with a U.S. con­nec­tion
• Estate, Gift, and Trust Tax Ser­vices
• Tax plan­ning for Indi­vid­u­als Who Are Mov­ing to the Unit­ed States
• Review of Estate Plan­ning Doc­u­ments for Tax Com­pli­ance
• Stock Option Elec­tion Plan­ning
• Assess­ment of Retire­ment Options with 401(k) and IRA
• Real Estate Ser­vices

Treaty positions, Planning, Income Characterization and Sourcing of Income

Prop­er tax plan­ning can pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits for you, the tax­pay­er, in specif­i­cal­ly avoid­ing dou­ble tax­a­tion. Our tax pro­fes­sion­als can assist at the out­set of your move out­side of the U.S. or can devel­op a plan that will per­mit you to uti­lize the var­i­ous tax treaties that the U.S. has with dif­fer­ent gov­ern­ments. Our team will ana­lyze your sit­u­a­tion, pro­vide infor­ma­tion about how your income is char­ac­ter­ized and U.S. tax laws and pro­vide prac­ti­cal guid­ance to devel­op a tax posi­tion that will save you mon­ey.

We assist our clients who tem­porar­i­ly work in Cana­da or per­ma­nent­ly live out­side the Unit­ed States with all aspects of their lives when tax­es are an issue. In addi­tion to help­ing our clients in com­ply­ing with the IRS and Trea­sury fil­ing and report­ing oblig­a­tions, we also proac­tive­ly explore tax plan­ning oppor­tu­ni­ties and do our best to pro­tect our clients from poten­tial penal­ties.

Cer­tain indi­vid­u­als have a more com­plex tax struc­ture than oth­ers. Whether you are a high-fly­ing exec­u­tive with income being gen­er­ate around the world or if you are an employ­ee of a Cana­di­an based com­pa­ny who receives a salary, there is a nuanced approach to where your income is gen­er­at­ed, how it is char­ac­ter­ized and what treaty ben­e­fits you can derive from these char­ac­ter­i­za­tions. These deter­mi­na­tions are often com­plex in nature but have a dis­cern­able ben­e­fit when it comes to fil­ing your U.S. tax­es.

Individual U.S. Tax Return Preparation

• U.S. Indi­vid­ual Tax Returns and For­eign Bank Account Report Prepa­ra­tion
• Deter­mi­na­tion of Tax Equal­iza­tion for U.S. Cit­i­zens Liv­ing in Cana­da
• IRC Sec­tion 911 — For­eign Earned Income Exclu­sion and Qual­i­fied Hous­ing Expens­es Deduc­tion – Form 2555
• For­eign Tax Cred­it (FTC) and Deduc­tion for For­eign Tax­es Paid
• Deter­mi­na­tion of U.S. Res­i­den­cy Issues and ‘Clos­er Con­nec­tion’ fil­ings
• Do You Own a Bank Account Out­side of the US? Share­hold­er of a non‑U.S. Com­pa­ny? SFCP and OVDP
• ITIN Ser­vices
• Gam­bling US Tax­es Refund for Cana­di­ans
• Immi­gra­tion and Fam­i­ly Mat­ters
• U.S. Green Card Hold­er and a Cit­i­zen and Tax Res­i­dent of Anoth­er Coun­try

Preparation of U.S. Individual Tax Returns and Foreign Bank Account Report

• Prepa­ra­tion of U.S. Non­res­i­dent Alien Income Tax Return (Form 1040NR) for US rental income, cap­i­tal gains from real prop­er­ty, salary income, and busi­ness income;
• Prepa­ra­tion of U.S. Indi­vid­ual Income Tax Return (Form 1040), and indi­vid­ual state income tax returns if nec­es­sary;
• Form Fin­CEN 114, Report of For­eign (non-US) Bank and Finan­cial Accounts

Tax Disputes

• IRS Audit Defense, Appeals Rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and Penal­ty Abate­ment Requests
• IRS Liens and IRS Levies
• IRS Wage Gar­nish­ment and IRS Seizures

IRS Audit Defense, Appeals Representation, and Penalty Abatement Requests

The IRS is always lurk­ing around the cor­ner and their enforce­ment agen­cies are becom­ing more effi­cient at find­ing and pros­e­cut­ing delin­quent tax­pay­ers. Many indi­vid­u­als and busi­ness are find­ing them­selves under the eye of the IRS enforce­ment author­i­ties, even while leav­ing abroad. Our approach to client ser­vices is to help avoid IRS audits by pro­vid­ing sound, pro-active advice to clients to main­tain their com­pli­ance with the IRS. In the event that you do get audit­ed, we are still here to help.

Our team of pro­fes­sion­als will assist in devel­op­ing a prop­er strat­e­gy and will work hard to pro­tect your inter­est before the IRS so that you max­i­mize any poten­tial res­o­lu­tion. We will help:

• Pro­duce set­tle­ments of back tax­es pro­vid­ing an out­come with less tax owed than what you owe based on an offer in com­pro­mise;
• We can nego­ti­ate and set up a pay­ment plan that is not bur­den­some of your lifestyle, with­in frame­work estab­lished by the applic­a­ble tax author­i­ties (such as nego­ti­at­ing install­ment agree­ments with the IRS);
• We will attempt to reduce or elim­i­nate penal­ties uti­liz­ing penal­ty abate­ment and waiv­er requests;
• We will strive to remove wage gar­nish­ments, bank levies and/or tax liens;
• Request inno­cent spouse relief;
• Pre­pare delin­quent (unfiled) tax returns, get­ting you com­pli­ant with for­eign bank account report­ing (FBAR) and inter­na­tion­al infor­ma­tion report­ing require­ments;
• All aspects of IRS audit defense, sup­port in an ongo­ing exam­i­na­tion, and rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Appeals;
• Man­ag­ing trans­fer pric­ing audit;
• Request­ing com­pe­tent author­i­ty assis­tance to elim­i­nate or reduce dou­ble tax­a­tion;
• Resolv­ing state and local tax issues.