Book a callWhat each one is actually for
The overlap is real, but the centre of gravity is different, and the difference matters most when things turn contentious.
A cross-border tax accountant
A cross-border tax lawyer
If your situation carries criminal exposure or is heading for an appeal, we will tell you on the first call and, where we can, point you at someone appropriate.
Which one you probably need
Three honest tests. If none of these applies to you, an accountant is almost certainly the right call.
If the question is what to file
Returns are late, complicated, or spread across two systems. Reporting forms were missed. You want to know what you owe and get it filed correctly. This is the overwhelming majority of enquiries.
If the question is contested
A tax authority has opened an examination that has gone beyond routine, you are facing an appeal, or there is any suggestion a failure was deliberate rather than accidental.
If it is a structure or a dispute with numbers
Complex estates, trusts, significant restructuring, or a contentious disclosure where the legal position and the computations have to be built together.
Where the distinction actually bites
Three situations where choosing the wrong adviser costs real money or real protection.
Disclosure where the facts are unhelpful
IRS streamlined procedures require non-willful conduct. The IRS Criminal Investigation Voluntary Disclosure Practice is the separate route that addresses willful noncompliance, and Canada's Voluntary Disclosures Program has its own criteria and is not a copy of either. Canadian disclosure can give penalty and partial interest relief, but does not erase the underlying tax. Where deliberate noncompliance or criminal exposure may be involved, speak to tax counsel before submitting anything.
Buying legal hours for clerical work
Plenty of people engage a tax attorney at several hundred an hour to oversee what is, in the end, the preparation of six ordinary returns. Oversight adds cost rather than protection when there is no legal question in play.
Structuring drafted without the numbers
Entities and trusts designed by counsel without modelling the outcome across both systems are how the classic cross-border mismatches get created.
Alongside counsel, not pretending the line does not exist
We are a cross-border tax accountancy practice. We prepare and file, we plan, and we deal with tax authorities on the substance of filings. Where a matter needs legal privilege or legal representation, we work under or alongside a lawyer.
In practice that is one of two arrangements. Either you engage counsel and they engage us for the financial analysis they need in order to advise you, or you engage us directly and we flag early if the matter needs a lawyer, at which point we keep working on the numbers under their instruction. Being engaged through counsel does not automatically make everything privileged. Whether particular communications are protected depends on the purpose of the work, whether confidentiality was maintained and the law that applies. Routine return preparation and the underlying records are generally not privileged through the engagement structure alone. Your lawyer determines the scope of any protection.
Neither arrangement costs more than doing it badly, and the first is often cheaper than legal hours spent on preparation work.
If you are reading this because you searched for a cross-border tax attorney and are not sure whether you need one, the free call settles it in twenty minutes, and we have no incentive to talk you into the wrong answer.
Questions people ask before choosing
This is general guidance rather than advice on your situation.
I got a letter from the IRS. Accountant or lawyer?
It depends entirely on the letter. Most correspondence is routine and handled far more cheaply by whoever prepared the return. A notice of examination that goes beyond a single line item, or anything referencing fraud or wilfulness, belongs with a lawyer before you reply. Send it to us and we will tell you which it is.
Is what I tell you privileged?
Not in the way it would be with a lawyer. There are limited protections for tax practitioner communications and they do not extend to criminal matters. If your situation might carry criminal exposure, speak to a lawyer first.
Can you work with my existing attorney?
Yes, routinely. Counsel may engage us to assist with the financial analysis needed for legal advice, and that usually reduces total cost because computation work is not billed at legal rates. It does not automatically place everything we produce inside privilege. Whether particular communications are protected depends on the work and the applicable law, and routine return preparation and the underlying records are not automatically protected. Your lawyer will determine the scope.
Do you have lawyers in the firm?
No. We are an accountancy practice with cross-border specialists, and we are explicit about that boundary. Firms that blur it tend to blur it in the direction of keeping the work.
If an accountant is what you need
Start from whichever of these fits.
Twenty minutes will tell you which adviser you need.
No charge, and no incentive on our side to give you the wrong answer.
Book a call