Again with the taxes

March 13, 2021 6:39 PM

Should I get a Canadian or US accountant to prepare my taxes while outside the US?

I am a US Citizen who has lived in Canada pretty much my entire life I have started to make some small amounts from the US, and there's a chance these grow in the coming years. I haven't filed my US taxes for about 20 years. I would like to get back on track with this. As I research I have some questions.

Is it better to use a Canadian accountant here like this one, or better to use a US one, like this one? Or is this something I could file on my own?

I am a freelancer here in Canada, so my taxes are not entirely straightforward but for my CRA filing I use ufile and enter my invoice and expenses and the software does the rest. I am up to date on my CRA filing. I have never made more than the $92K limit.

I was going to wait a bit on this, but the latest stimulus checks means I think that my filing would also make me eligible and potentially help defray some of the costs.

posted by miles1972 to Work & Money (5 answers total)

Disclaimer: I am not an accountant or a tax lawyer, etc. I am a dual US/Canadian citizen living in Canada for the past 15 or so years, but I have always done my own taxes up to now rather than hiring an accountant.

I think it's more likely that a Canadian accountant will have experience with your situation than a US accountant will, because there are something like 1 million people in Canada who have US citizenship and hence are required to file US taxes every year in addition to their Canadian taxes. The reverse filing requirement does not apply to Canadians living in the US, so US accountants will probably not be as experienced in dealing with your situation.
posted by heatherlogan at 7:24 PM on March 13, 2021 [4 favorites]

Dual citizen filing from Canada here. Best to get an accountant based in Canada who has experience getting you back on track. Expect to spend several thousands to get this done as you’ll need to file a ton of past years (I had to file 7 years but I was starting from never having filed with the IRS). Your accountant’s professional advice on the best way to approach the IRS about getting squared away is going to be invaluable.
posted by some chick at 8:33 PM on March 13, 2021 [3 favorites]

Definitely go with a Canadian-based firm that can file American taxes not the other way around. Try to find a few places and ask for quotes, and see if they will give you a discount for doing multiple years at once. Fwiw I use BBA and their prices are good.
posted by 100kb at 9:56 PM on March 13, 2021

I'm in NZ not Canada, but I easily found a NZ firm that specialises in US taxes (and does my NZ taxes too). They're not located near me, but we have done everything by email with a very occasional phone call. The service seems fairly expensive, but they do the two things I really need: hound me for specific information at specific times, and know the rules and regulations.

I used to try to do it all myself, with the result that I constantly had low-level background (or high-level foreground!) stress about it, and I never knew if what I was doing was quite right.

My advice is to ask all your US citizen friends & acquaintances what they do, if you haven't already. Answers will probably range from "I blow it off, they'll never catch me" to "I use so-and-so and am satisfied." If the same so-and-so keeps coming up, well, there you go!
posted by inexorably_forward at 1:51 PM on March 14, 2021

Response by poster: Thanks all. I am now having trouble finding a place to do this in Canada. Many are too busy. The one place that got back to me quoted over $10,000 to take care of this. I’m wondering if this is something I could actually file myself.
posted by miles1972 at 9:44 PM on March 19, 2021