Are You Fully Compliant? 5 Great Reasons to Go to a U.S. Tax Advisor!

Key Takeaways

Qual­i­fied U.S. tax advi­sors help reduce tax bur­dens and fil­ing risks for Amer­i­cans in Cana­da
From iden­ti­fy­ing the right deduc­tions and cred­its to prepar­ing com­plex cross-bor­der returns, U.S. tax advi­sors ease fil­ing oblig­a­tions, espe­cial­ly for those with dual tax respon­si­bil­i­ties in Cana­da and the U.S.

Expert guid­ance helps avoid cost­ly tax errors and IRS penal­ties
Trained advi­sors reduce the like­li­hood of com­mon mis­takes, such as incor­rect cal­cu­la­tions, form omis­sions, and missed dead­lines, which can oth­er­wise lead to fines, delays, and com­pound­ing inter­est.

Tax advi­sors do more than file returns, they pro­vide year-round strate­gic plan­ning
Beyond tax sea­son, qual­i­fied advi­sors sup­port clients with retire­ment plan­ning, estate strate­gies, and cross-bor­der invest­ment deci­sions, help­ing safe­guard both per­son­al and busi­ness finances long-term.

You work hard for your mon­ey. Nat­u­ral­ly, you want to keep as much of it as pos­si­ble when you file your tax­es. If you’re an indi­vid­ual fil­ing a sim­ple U.S. tax return, you can like­ly file your own tax­es with­out much of a has­sle. How­ev­er, some tax returns are more com­pli­cat­ed than oth­ers. For instance, if you are a U.S. cit­i­zen or green card hold­er liv­ing in Cana­da, keep­ing up with U.S. cross-bor­der com­pli­ance require­ments can be a chal­lenge. There are cer­tain unique finan­cial, tax and estate plan­ning laws that you may not be aware of. U.S. tax prepa­ra­tion for indi­vid­u­als liv­ing in Cana­da with U.S. tax oblig­a­tions is best han­dled by a qual­i­fied U.S. tax advi­sor. U.S. cit­i­zens and green card hold­ers resid­ing in Cana­da may expe­ri­ence sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits from the ser­vices offered by them. These pro­fes­sion­als opti­mize their clients’ returns and ensure com­pli­ance in both coun­tries. They are trained to han­dle the most sophis­ti­cat­ed tax sit­u­a­tions and use their knowl­edge to pro­tect their clients against penal­ties. A good tax advi­sor offers con­sul­ta­tion, plan­ning and prepa­ra­tion ser­vices; all firm­ly root­ed in cross-bor­der tax real­i­ties.

Do You Really Need a Tax Advisor?

Just as a doc­tor is trained to rec­og­nize sub­tle symp­toms and catch them before they lead to a big­ger med­ical issue, a qual­i­fied tax advi­sor is trained to scru­ti­nize your returns and fil­ing posi­tions and address any dis­crep­an­cies before the IRS catch­es them. A qual­i­fied U.S. tax advi­sor is one who spe­cial­izes in the com­plex­i­ties of the U.S. tax code. They lever­age that exper­tise to assist tax­pay­ers in ensur­ing prop­er com­pli­ance in the Unit­ed States. A reg­u­lar accoun­tant may not have the prop­er qual­i­fi­ca­tions to assist you in your U.S. cross-bor­der tax fil­ings, nor will they be able to offer or under­stand the nec­es­sary plan­ning oppor­tu­ni­ties that may save you time and mon­ey. This is where a qual­i­fied U.S. tax advi­sor does what a reg­u­lar accoun­tant can­not. Cre­den­tialed and expe­ri­enced advi­sors can save you a lot of mon­ey in the long run. How so? Well, for one, they uti­lize their pro­fi­cien­cy and expe­ri­ence to apply com­pli­cat­ed and con­fus­ing tax law require­ments on your behalf. Tax laws often have a lot of nuances that the aver­age tax­pay­er would not be able to rec­og­nize, take advan­tage of or avoid, if nec­es­sary. Qual­i­fied U.S. tax advi­sors can spot these com­pli­ca­tions and often­times use them to your advan­tage. Below, we’ve com­piled a list of the biggest advan­tages that you can enjoy when you engage a qual­i­fied U.S. tax advi­sor;

#1: Eases Your Tax Burden

As dis­cussed ear­li­er, U.S. tax fil­ing oblig­a­tions for cer­tain indi­vid­u­als can be com­pli­cat­ed. For instance, a small busi­ness own­er may have cer­tain deduc­tions and cred­its avail­able to them on the U.S. income tax return. This may require addi­tion­al fil­ings in addi­tion to the typ­i­cal Form 1040, U.S. Indi­vid­ual Income Tax Return. Any addi­tion­al forms or sched­ules that may apply to a taxpayer’s case, should be iden­ti­fied by the tax advi­sor. These addi­tion­al forms are often­times required, espe­cial­ly in the cross-bor­der tax con­text. When you’re attempt­ing to nav­i­gate your way through these returns, the risk of error ris­es with each addi­tion­al form you are required to sub­mit. A knowl­edge­able tax advi­sor mit­i­gates these risks and iden­ti­fies rel­e­vant tax posi­tions or applic­a­ble cred­its to lessen your tax bur­den as much as pos­si­ble.

#2: No More Costly Errors

At the core of their job, a tax advi­sor attempts to off­set any and all errors that may arise on your tax returns. These errors can prove cost­ly in terms of the asso­ci­at­ed penal­ties and your need to hire a pro­fes­sion­al to fix them. Fur­ther­more, the errors often­times result in frus­trat­ing pro­cess­ing delays and mul­ti­ple instances of cor­re­spon­dence from the Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice (IRS). For those indi­vid­u­als choos­ing to file on their own, the IRS main­tains a list of the most fre­quent tax fil­ing errors that involve com­put­ing mis­takes when deter­min­ing tax­able income, inputting expens­es on the incor­rect line and basic math errors. Errors lead to tax lia­bil­i­ties, penal­ties and inter­est. Most of these will be imposed from the date you file the return, or the date in which the return was due. The inter­est and penal­ties assessed accu­mu­late quick­ly. As a caveat, we are not claim­ing that a qual­i­fied U.S. tax advi­sor does not make errors. Rather, in con­sid­er­a­tion of the fact that these advi­sors are specif­i­cal­ly trained in the area of U.S. tax, the chances of errors in fil­ing is sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced, com­pared to that of a lay per­son fil­ing the return with­out assis­tance. Fur­ther­more, qual­i­fied U.S. tax advi­sors can pro­vide spe­cif­ic pro­tec­tion if the U.S. tax fil­ing is done incor­rect­ly.

#3: Identifies All Credits and Deductions That You Qualify For

Tax advi­sors study your pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al pro­file and piece togeth­er any deduc­tions and cred­its that you may qual­i­fy for. You may think that you are enti­tled to a vari­ety of cred­its but, the com­plex­i­ties of the U.S. tax law may lim­it your abil­i­ty to uti­lize mul­ti­ple or sig­nif­i­cant cred­its. A qual­i­fied U.S. tax advi­sor will iden­ti­fy the tax posi­tion best suit­ed for your sit­u­a­tion to help max­i­mize any refunds you may be enti­tled to.

#4: Year-Round Advice and Assistance

Apart from pro­vid­ing a pro­fes­sion­al touch on your tax returns dur­ing the tax sea­son, you also have the ben­e­fit of approach­ing your tax advi­sor at any oth­er time of the year. They can answer any impor­tant ques­tions regard­ing your finan­cial health, as it relates to your tax­es, to help prop­er­ly posi­tion you. This ensures that you are not a run-of-the-mill tax fil­er that only speaks to their accoun­tant once a year to pro­vide them with your report­ing slips. Your advi­sor will strive to devel­op a rela­tion­ship with you to best posi­tion you in the future. This is espe­cial­ly use­ful when you are the own­er of a busi­ness and may encounter tricky tax sit­u­a­tions out­side of the end of the tax year (sit­u­a­tions that call for quick action!) that will like­ly affect your tax posi­tion in the future.

#5: Sets Your Personal and Professional Affairs in Order

U.S. tax fil­ing oblig­a­tions aside, a tax advi­sor also steers indi­vid­u­als and busi­ness­es to make prop­er finan­cial deci­sions in key areas. This could include retire­ment plan­ning, estate plan­ning, invest­ment man­age­ment, and small busi­ness plan­ning. Cana­di­ans with U.S. real estate, espe­cial­ly, will find this par­tic­u­lar­ly use­ful to avoid to pit­falls asso­ci­at­ed with U.S. tax­es upon the sale of that prop­er­ty. Your tax advi­sor even comes to the res­cue for impor­tant life events such as mar­riage, the birth of a child or pur­chas­ing real estate. Often­times, indi­vid­u­als for­feit or dimin­ish future earn­ings because they neglect­ed to make smart moves at the right time with the help of a qual­i­fied U.S. tax advi­sor.

Haven’t filed your tax­es yet? Our tax advi­sors have over 40 years of expe­ri­ence in U.S. tax law. They are hap­py to assist you in under­stand­ing your tax oblig­a­tions and max­i­miz­ing your tax out­comes mov­ing for­ward.