It's why you're in demand all across the globe. And it's why you deserve more than a generic Australian accountant who only deals with locally-based clients, you deserve advisors who understand expat life, because they've lived it themselves. Most of the cost of getting expat tax wrong is paid before you leave. Departure timing, residency status, CGT events, super, foreign assets, done in the right order, you keep what you've built. We are pre-departure specialists for Australians about to step abroad. Foreign income. Foreign super and pensions. Offshore investments that didn't sell before the flight home. Residency resets that take longer than the visa stamp. Returned Australians have more to declare (and more to lose) than any other client we see. We've spent twenty years getting these returns right. It's why we believe the Australian tax system shouldn't punish you for getting here. Specialist tax advice for new arrivals, from advisors who have crossed borders themselves and know what the first few years really look like.
Expatriate taxation is the craft of analysing and applying tax treaties whilst navigating between two tax systems all at once. Our practice is built around the expat journeys that we understand deeply, Australians abroad (or heading abroad), returned Australians with international income or assets, and foreign expats making Australia home.
Residency determinations, Division 7A, CGT event I1, PPOR absence rules, superannuation strategy, departure tax, non-resident withholdings, and the year you come home — we've done it, for clients in ~115 countries.
Most of the cost of getting expat tax wrong is paid before you leave. Departure timing, residency status, CGT events, super, foreign assets — done in the right order, you keep what you've built.
Foreign income, foreign super and pensions, offshore investments that didn't sell before the flight home, cost-base resets, CGT event I2, treaty positions, FITO, ESS that vested while you were away — the most complicated return most Australians ever file. We've spent twenty years getting these right.
First-year residency, 183-day counts, foreign income, foreign assets, employee share schemes, Medicare Levy exemptions, double-tax treaty relief, and the structure of your Australian chapter — advised from day one.
It is an odd thing to advise on a life you have not lived!
Both of our tax partners have lived overseas as Australian expats.Between us, twenty-five plus years (ongoing) of expatriate life across four continents.
The advice sounds different when the advisor has filed their own non-resident return from their desk in Bogotá, or coordinated their own treaty position from South East Asia or downtown San Francisco.
We're not a firm that once read about the expatriate experience. We've lived it, and we still do. We've stood in the same embassy queues, faced the same residency questions, weighed the same decisions about super and property back home. We've answered them for ourselves just as we answer them for you.
You speak with a Partner or one of our Senior Tax Managers. Always. Not an account manager, not a junior. The partner who provides the advice is with you over your expat journey from start to finish.
“When I founded this firm in May 2006, it was meant to be a traditional accounting practice. Then, after I moved to Malaysia in early 2007, I kept seeing the same thing among the Australian expats around me: the advice they were getting from their accountants back home was wrong, in almost every case. They couldn’t get the expert help their situation needed.
So I pivoted the firm to do one thing properly: Australian and international tax for Australian expats. The right advice for each person’s situation, at the right time, when they actually needed it.
I’m a Chartered Accountant, registered tax agent (Individual TAN: 25624705) and expat tax specialist, and an expat myself, many times over, with the best part of two decades abroad before returning to Melbourne in 2025 to be closer to family. Every residency question, every cross-border return, every time-zone juggle my clients face: I’ve lived it on my own affairs first.
Outside tax, my other love is technology. I built and sold a fintech startup, Fifo Workpapers, to the accounting-industry behemoth Intuit, back in 2013, and if a gadget has flashing lights or an Apple logo, I’m drawn to it like a moth to a flame. My proudest work is building Expat Taxes into something Australians all over the world can rely on. My proudest anything, though, is my three sons. None of whom, funnily enough, have any interest in becoming accountants.”
“I run our files from Bogotá. My wife and son are here, and my clients are scattered across time zones I can set a watch by. That’s the job, and the life, and I love it.
I’m a CPA-qualified tax specialist and registered tax agent (Individual TAN: 26003459), originally from Perth, with more than 20 years in tax and accounting. Alongside Shane, I supervise our team and take personal care of many of our clients myself.
The years I spent at a respected Perth firm, handling compliance for businesses and high-net-worth individuals, taught me that expat tax sits on top of solid fundamentals, and I’ve spent a long time getting the fundamentals right. Get those wrong and the clever cross-border strategy on top means nothing.
The expat part, though, I understand from the inside. I’m an Australian living abroad, filing my own cross-border return, navigating the same residency questions and time zones my clients do. When you call me about your situation, you’re not explaining it to someone who read about it in a textbook. You’re talking to someone living a version of it. That changes the advice, and it changes how I give it.
When I’m not buried in returns, you’ll find me cycling Colombia’s endless mountain climbs, or out on the pitch for the Bogotá Cricket Club. Eight years in, Bogotá feels like home, which is its own kind of answer to the questions my clients are weighing.”
Every engagement begins with understanding the shape of your life - residency, employment, assets, family, timing. The tax return is the output.
The advisory is where the real money is made and saved - cross-border planning, tax minimisation, and wealth strategies designed to grow your wealth and built from our own experience as expert expatriate tax specialists and from our 25 plus years as Australian expats abroad.
Australia's residency laws are subjective, grey, and require an analysis of a person's facts, circumstances and intentions making them incredibly difficult to apply. We apply the rules, common law and legal precedent to your very own, unique specific circumstances to determine your residency status, the implications, and the various tax-planning and wealth-creation strategies available to you across the tax systems of Australia and your new host country.
When you've earned and lived across borders, your return is rarely simple and the cost of getting it wrong is rarely small. We prepare Australian returns for residents, non-residents and part-year taxpayers; foreign-sourced income, FITO, CGT, Schedule B and every associated schedule. Filed correctly the first time, with treaty positions defended in writing, so you keep what you've earned and never overpay.
In depth pre-departure planning for outbound expats and returning to Australia repatriation planning for returning expats: residency status and exit timing, superannuation strategy whilst non-resident, treaty positioning, how every income stream and every asset (Australian and offshore) will be taxed, money movement, Medicare and private health. Mapped to your circumstances, not a generic checklist, with a complimentary follow-up after you have digested the advice.
Selling, or even just keeping, Australian property as an expat can quietly cost you tens of thousands if the timing, residency status or main-residence position is wrong. We work through CGT event I1, the PPOR absence rule, the six-year rule, deemed disposals, the Main Residence Exemption, 50% discount modifications and more, and map the strategy that protects the most equity for your circumstances. Complex rules, explained simply, so you make the call with eyes open, before the tax is locked in.
Australian super is one of the most powerful retirement vehicles in the world, and one of the easiest to mishandle as an expat. The rules don't change when you leave, but the strategy that works for you absolutely does: contributions as a non-resident, transfer balance caps, SMSF residency, the interaction between Australian super and offshore pension plans, and drawdowns from foreign retirement schemes. We also advise on the tax and strategy implications of foreign pension plans, 401(k)s, IRAs, UK SIPPs, EU pillar pensions and more. Get this wrong and it compounds for decades. Get it right and your retirement works for you wherever you live.
RSUs, options and ESS are where global employees lose the most money, and don't even know it. Cross-border vesting, residency-change timing, double taxation in two countries, and the cost-base resets that quietly destroy a decade of equity upside. We build the strategy that protects what you've earned: when to vest, when to sell, where to be tax-resident when each tranche lands. Get this right and it's the difference of hundreds of thousands of dollars over a career.
An ATO letter lands and your stomach drops. Most accountants quietly fold; we don't. We've fought and won (including in court), against objections, audits, residency reviews and the most complex private binding ruling applications, with a success rate well above 90%. When the assessment is wrong, when the position is technical, when hundreds of thousands sit on the outcome, this is where deep tax law expertise pays for itself many times over. Our partners argue these matters personally.
No portal mazes. No junior handoffs. You speak with the advisor who reads your file. From first enquiry to lodgement, the relationship is direct.
A 30-minute conversation. No preparation required. We listen to where you are, and map where tax matters.
A clear, fixed-fee engagement letter. No hourly billing. No surprises. You know exactly what you are buying.
We prepare, structure, and advise. You review drafts, ask questions, approve. Everything flows through one secure portal.
Lodged with the ATO. A written summary of what we did and why. Year-round support, not just in October.
Two decades of relationships with people living complicated lives across borders. Here is what a few of them say.
“The difference is that they have actually lived it. My advisor answered my questions about Saigon from Saigon. I have never had tax advice feel so grounded.”
We run with a distributed team, working across multiple locations and multiple time zones, and we meet virtually, securely, anywhere our clients are.
Select a time that suits your zone. You'll meet your lead advisor for the engagement, not a junior.
Choose a timeOne working day for a substantive reply. We treat every enquiry as confidential before any engagement begins.
info@expattaxes.com.au →Reception is staffed around the clock to take your call and route a message. Advisors return calls during Australian business hours, Monday - Friday.
+61 1300 762 001 →The questions most new clients ask us. If yours isn't here, the complimentary 30-minute consultation is the best place to ask it.
Complimentary. Confidential. With an advisor who has done this exact thing for Australians in your position before.
Or write to info@expattaxes.com.au — we reply within two business days.
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