I'm dual US/Canadian citizen and currently living and working in Canada.
In the past 3 years haven't filled (report it) the income tax in the US, and looking for affordable accountant or eventually tips how to file it by myself.
Basically it is just a reporting foreign income Tax to the IRS .
Any tips, leads or just points of direction greatly welcomed :D
US tax filling
Moderator: Mark T Serbinski CA CPA
You say you have not filed for past 3 yrs so I figure you have filed for teh previous years if applicable, just look at what was done previously and follow suit. Hoefully the former accountant did it correcdly watch out for teh foreign earned income exclusiuon form 2555 and if you have RRSP file teh 8891 form other than that you should be on track by following the previous filings formats.
Just a note on cost, I just received an email from the Ontario CA's of which I am a member that in teh April 2012 Federal CRA budget there is now a mandatory requirement for practitioners who file more than 10 individual tax returns to e-file them instead of paper file, to me this means that the cost of filing is now going to increase since this places an accounting firm in a position of doing more work to make sure the tax return is now filed on time, before we gave it to teh client and it was his resposibility to file it on time now we have to prepare it and file it ( basically more hand holding means more time). However there may be an exception made for non residents or emmigrants tax returns but I do see some cross border files where this will apply, this new rule is effective for 2012, it seem very similar to the IRS rules that will be requiring more than 10 tax returns per year by an tax preparer to be e-filed too.
Just a note on cost, I just received an email from the Ontario CA's of which I am a member that in teh April 2012 Federal CRA budget there is now a mandatory requirement for practitioners who file more than 10 individual tax returns to e-file them instead of paper file, to me this means that the cost of filing is now going to increase since this places an accounting firm in a position of doing more work to make sure the tax return is now filed on time, before we gave it to teh client and it was his resposibility to file it on time now we have to prepare it and file it ( basically more hand holding means more time). However there may be an exception made for non residents or emmigrants tax returns but I do see some cross border files where this will apply, this new rule is effective for 2012, it seem very similar to the IRS rules that will be requiring more than 10 tax returns per year by an tax preparer to be e-filed too.
JG
