Is a Paid Cross-Border Tax Assessment Worth It Before You Hire Anyone?

It’s worth paying for when your file holds an unknown that changes the price or the plan, and it isn’t when your situation is already knowable. The $249 Cross-Border Assessment buys a written read on your facts, the list of filings your situation actually triggers, and a fixed price for the work. If you can already name the returns you need and you just want a number, skip it and go to the published fee ranges instead.

What does the $249 assessment actually buy?

Three things, all written down. A 60-minute review of your actual documents with a CPA licensed on both sides of the border. A written plan that maps what you owe where and lists the exact filings your situation triggers. And a fixed price for the work, in writing, before anything starts. It’s $249 USD, about $349 CAD. It’s non-refundable, it credits in full toward the work if you go ahead, and the plan stays with you regardless of what you decide; the current credit terms are set out on the assessment page.

• The review. 60 minutes on your documents and your dates, so the plan comes from your file rather than from a category you were sorted into.
• The written plan. What has to be filed, in which country, for which years, and what is outstanding right now.
• The number. A fixed quote for the work the plan describes, so the price stops being a range.

A written scope is a different object from a conversation: it names the forms, the countries, the years, and the gaps, and the fixed price is calculated off that list rather than off an impression. What happens next is your call, and taking the plan to another firm or working through it yourself are both ordinary endings.

When do you not need a paid assessment?

When your situation is already knowable without one. If you can name the returns you need, or nothing in your file actually crosses the border, or you’re only after a price for work you’ve already scoped, a paid diagnostic sells you a document you could have assembled yourself. In those cases the fee page plus a free call gets you the same distance for nothing. Being told to skip it is a real answer, and it’s the one this section exists to give.

• A single straightforward filing with no cross-border element. One US return, or one Canadian return, and no account, entity, or move sitting on the other side of the line.
• You already know exactly which returns you need. If you can list them, take the list to the published starting prices and ask for a quote against it. A simple file gets a written quote off a free fifteen-minute call without paying for anything first.
• Your question is general rather than specific to your file. If what you want is how a rule works, a guide answers it for free and the assessment adds nothing on top.
• You aren’t going to act on it this year. A written plan built on this year’s dates and balances gets stale, so buying it early usually means buying it twice.

If you’re still deciding between firms rather than between products, that’s a different job with its own checks, and how to check a cross-border firm yourself runs through the register lookups you can do without paying anyone.

When does a paid assessment earn its money?

When an unknown in your file changes either the price or the plan. That’s the whole test. Five situations do it: residency dates that could fall in either of two years, an entity formed in the wrong country or at the wrong time, registered accounts crossing the border, unfiled years whose scope nobody has measured, and a sale running against a clearance-certificate clock. Each of those has a fork in it, and until somebody looks at the documents, nobody can tell you what to file or what it costs.

Residency dates that could land in either of two years

Two dates decide most of a move year, and both fork. Going in, the IRS puts the starting date under the substantial presence test at “generally the first day you are present in the United States during that calendar year” (IRS, Residency starting and ending dates). Coming out, the same page’s general rule puts the ending date at December 31 of the year you left, with an earlier date available only where two conditions hold for the remainder of the year.

“Under the general rule, the residency ending date is December 31 of the calendar year in which you left the United States. However, your residency ending date is the last day during the calendar year that you are physically present in the United States if, for the remainder of the calendar year: your tax home is in a foreign country (cf. Rev. Rul. 93-86); and you maintain a closer connection to that foreign country than to the United States.”

The same page also requires a signed statement, under penalties of perjury, to establish the residency termination date. So the date isn’t something you pick. The facts and the evidence produce it, and how much of the calendar year sits inside your US residency period follows from that. Canada runs its own version of the same question, worked through in am I still a Canadian tax resident.

An entity formed in the wrong country, or at the wrong time

A US LLC owned from Canada is one version of this. The IRS instructions make a foreign-owned US disregarded entity a reporting corporation for Form 5472 (IRS, Instructions for Form 5472). Whether your entity is inside that definition, and from which tax year, turns on how it was formed and owned rather than on what it earned. The trap itself is set out in why a US LLC is a tax trap for Canadian residents, and the penalty mechanics in what the Form 5472 penalty actually is.

Registered accounts crossing the border

Here the interlock is the part people miss. The Form 3520 instructions list, among the transactions the form doesn’t have to be filed for, “certain eligible individuals’ transfers to, ownership of, and distributions from certain tax-favored foreign retirement trusts and certain tax-favored foreign nonretirement savings trusts, as described in section 5 of Rev. Proc. 2020-17” (IRS, Instructions for Form 3520). Read the definition of “eligible individual” in the revenue procedure and two conditions run together: whether your US returns are in order for the periods still open for assessment, and whether the account’s contributions, earnings and distributions were reported as income where US law required it.

“an eligible individual means an individual who is, or at any time was, a U.S. citizen or resident (within the meaning of section 7701(a)(30)(A)) and who, for any period during which an amount of tax may be assessed under section 6501 (without regard to section 6501(c)(8)), is compliant (or comes into compliance) with all requirements for filing a U.S. federal income tax return (or returns) covering the period such individual was a U.S. citizen or resident, and to the extent required under U.S. tax law, has reported as income any contributions to, earnings of, or distributions from, an applicable tax-favored foreign trust on the applicable return (including on an amended return).” (Rev. Proc. 2020-17, section 5.02)

So an unfiled year upstream can decide the reporting answer for accounts downstream, and the same revenue procedure says it doesn’t affect FBAR or section 6038D reporting either way. The position question for a TFSA specifically is worked through in whether a TFSA is a foreign trust, and the cost of the forms in what TFSA reporting actually costs.

Unfiled years whose scope nobody has measured

Two streamlined routes exist and they land in different places, so which one your history puts you on changes the answer before any fee is quoted. The foreign route runs on a non-residency requirement. For individual US citizens or lawful permanent residents, the IRS states it as no US abode, and at least 330 full days physically outside the United States, in one of the most recent three years for which the return due date has passed; the same page sets a separate test for individuals who are neither. A taxpayer who’s eligible for it and follows all of the IRS’s instructions isn’t subject to the penalties the IRS lists there.

“The Title 26 miscellaneous offshore penalty is equal to 5 percent of the highest aggregate balance/value of the taxpayer’s foreign financial assets that are subject to the miscellaneous offshore penalty during the years in the covered tax return period and the covered FBAR period.” (IRS, U.S. taxpayers residing in the United States)

That 5 percent sits on the domestic route and not the foreign one, so a wrong read on which route applies is a wrong read on both the exposure and the work. What the catch-up work itself costs is on what the Streamlined procedure costs for a Canadian, and the route decision in catching up on unfiled US returns.

A sale running against a clearance-certificate clock

This one is a deadline rather than a judgment call, which is what makes it expensive when it’s missed. A non-resident who disposes of taxable Canadian property has to send the Minister a notice “not later than 10 days after the disposition”, by registered mail, unless a notice already went in before the disposition under subsection 116(1) and three further conditions in the same subsection hold: the buyer was the proposed purchaser named in that notice, the estimated amount set out in it is equal to or greater than the actual proceeds, and the adjusted cost base stated in it is not exceeded (Income Tax Act, s. 116). The clock starts on a closing date somebody has usually already agreed to, so the useful time to ask is before the sale rather than afterwards. The mechanics are in the Section 116 clearance certificate.

What is a paid assessment not?

It’s a diagnosis, so it stops where the treatment starts. It isn’t the filing: no return gets prepared or filed under it, and the work the plan describes is a separate engagement at the price the plan quotes. It isn’t a second opinion on a return that’s already been filed, which is different work with its own scope. And it isn’t advice in a vacuum, because the plan is built from your documents and your dates.

• Not the filing. You end up with a plan and a quote. The returns are the engagement that follows, if you decide to go ahead.
• Not a review of a filed return. Re-examining a finished return is a separate piece of work, scoped and priced on its own.
• Not a substitute for your documents. If slips, statements, or an exit date are missing, the plan names those gaps rather than guessing past them.

How is a paid assessment different from a free intro call?

By what you walk away holding. A free call is a conversation: you get a read on what your file looks like and, where the file is simple, a written quote off the back of it. A paid assessment is a piece of work: your documents get reviewed, and you keep a written plan with the filing list and a fixed price. The free call is the cheapest way to find out which of the two you need, and it costs fifteen minutes.

What you’re deciding	A free 15-minute call	The $249 assessment
What it costs	Nothing	$249 USD, about $349 CAD
How long it takes	15 minutes	60 minutes plus review time
What you keep	A read on your file, and a written quote where the file is simple	A written plan: the filing list, both-country exposure, and a fixed price
Who it suits	Anyone, as a first step, including a reader who can already name the returns	A file with an unknown that moves the price or the plan
Where it falls short	Too short to review documents, so the quote is worth what the facts you described are worth	It stops at the plan; the filing is separate work
If you go ahead	Nothing to credit	Credits in full toward the work

The row worth weighing is “what you keep”, and it’s fair to weigh it. If a free call can produce a written quote for your file, take the free call. The assessment exists for the files where fifteen minutes of talking can’t produce a filing list, because the filing list depends on documents nobody has opened yet.

How do I tell which side of the line I’m on?

Run this on yourself before you spend anything. Without looking anything up, write down the dates your tax residency changed on each side, every account you hold in both countries, and every entity you own a piece of. If all three lists come out clean and confident, what you need is a price rather than a diagnosis. If any one of them is a shrug or a maybe, that’s your unknown, and it’s the thing that moves both the filing list and the number.

What should I do next?

Two moves, depending on where the test landed you. If your three lists came out clean, open the fee page, find the line closest to your situation, and ask for a quote on those facts. If any list was a shrug, the assessment is the cheapest way to turn it into a filing list and a fixed number, and it credits in full toward the work if you go ahead. Either way, the free fifteen-minute call is the step that tells you which of the two you’re looking at.

This guide is general information, not tax advice for your specific situation. Which points apply, and how, depends on your facts.