jaydami

Hi all,

Myself and my family are looking to move to Alberta at some point next year. I am eager to start looking for jobs. I currently work as a international / corporation tax specialist with a professional firm in the UK. I am also a qualified chartered account and chartered tax accountant.

I am very aware that the tax legislation in the UK and Canada are different and I may have to do exams again but on a quick research, the canadian tax body requires to have a job before I can sit the in-depth tax course.

Has anyone been through something similar, were you able to secure a job and then write the exams afterwards?

Any tips how to go about job searching in Canada if I want to remain a tax advisor?

Thank you in advance.

JonboyE

I am sure you have found this, but in case you have not https://www.cpacanada.ca/en/become-a...anadian-cpa-ca

Although CPA is a national body it is administered at a provincial level. Essentially, you have to be resident in the province you apply to.

It is not impossible, but very, very hard to get a job from overseas, especially if you will not be moving here for some time. You will be better served by trying to build up a network of contacts so that when you move here you can hit the ground running.

On the plus side, accounting firms know what a British chartered accountant qualification is so I don't think it will be impossible to get a job prior to obtaining a Canadian designation. However, I would go about it as soon as you get here. In an age where many resumes are scanned by computer systems before reaching a human not having a Canadian qualification will limit opportunities. Hence the value of a personal network.

There is some demand for UK/Canada corporate tax expertise but it is limited. "International" tax expertise means knowledge of Canadian and US tax codes. Most US states are like the Canadian provinces in that they only deal with residents. There are a couple that allow non-residents to qualify. Illinois is the one most Canadian accountants who want a US CPA qualification use. Maybe you can work on this while you are waiting to move? Having both Canadian and US designations will do your career no harm at all.

jaydami

Thank you so very much. This is so informative and I have a better idea of where to focus my efforts!

Steve_

What Jon is saying in a roundabout way is you're better off self-employed, just don't move to White Rock and compete with him.

The Canadian tax system is much less sophisticated than the UK system but on the other hand far more bureaucratic, which gives you a solid idea of what Canada is like generally. There are only seven payroll codes for example, the rest is worked out on the individual's T1.

Intuit and H&R Block lobby the govt. to not automate the system which is why I will never ever use Turbotax!

My own personal favourite bit of bureaucracy are the maddening GIFI codes, which are supposed to make life easier but imx make accounting far more difficult. Supposedly they're based on GAAP, oh really.

You spend half your time preparing financial statements figuring out what frigging GIFI code to use. And then when you prepare the tax statements, you basically have two rows of numbers that make no sense, a list of GIFI codes followed by a list of amounts. It's totally crap and the agents at the CRA still can't figure it out. Oh and Alberta doesn't use them on provincial returns just to make life even more complex.

The whole provincial/federal corporation thing is really fun too.

jaydami

Lool! This should be fun! Thank you for shedding more light on the system. Even though the uk tax code is complicated, the whole federal and provincial tax system sounds complicated to me.

Steve_

The main difference on the personal front is the lack of gift/estate taxes.

Instead Canada has deemed disposition rules, i.e. CGT applied at death or emigration. Principal residence is exempt, so what rich people do is buy stupidly large houses when they get old to avoid it.