About · A practice founded by an expatriate accountant
Built by Australian accountants who left, too.
Expat Taxes was founded in Kuala Lumpur in 2006 by an Australian tax accountant living abroad - because the advice he was being given, year after year, by firms back home, was wrong. Twenty years on, our clients live in 115 countries, and a deep bench of resident Australians too. The work is the same: Australian tax, done properly, by accountants who have lived the situation themselves.
2006
Founded · Kuala Lumpur
115
Countries served
17+ yrs
Lived overseas · founder
5.0
⋆ 346 reviews
The story below
In 2006, an Australian tax accountant named Shane Macfarlane was living in Kuala Lumpur. He had taken a posting that was meant to last eighteen months. It became permanent. He kept his Australian property, his Australian super, a portfolio of Australian shares, and - like every Australian who has ever moved overseas - a complicated tax situation.
Each year, he sent his return to a firm in Brisbane. Each year, the advice was different. Each year, it was wrong. The accountant who'd done it last year had left the firm. The one who replaced them had read about expatriate tax in a textbook. They were not unkind. They were not unqualified. They simply were not living the situation, and the situation moves faster than a textbook can.
Kuala Lumpur, where the practice was founded - and where it was first needed.
So Shane started filing his own returns. Then his colleagues' - the other Australians at the bank, the engineers from the petroleum companies, the school teachers, the diplomats' wives. Word spread the way it always does in expatriate communities: at dinners, at international school pickups, at airport lounges. Within two years, it was a practice. Within five, it had clients in twenty countries.
"I started this firm because the advice I was being given, as an Australian living abroad, was wrong. Every year. From someone new. I built the firm I wished existed."
Twenty years on, Expat Taxes has filed returns for Australians in 115 countries. In 2025 Shane returned to Australia with his wife, to be close to ageing parents and to family - based now just outside Melbourne, with regular travel back to Ho Chi Minh City and to client cities through the year. The move is for the season we're in; it is likely temporary. Terryn continues to file from Bogotá, Colombia, where his family lives. Between the seventeen years Shane has spent abroad and the eight Terryn has, the firm's centre of gravity has not changed: it sits with the lived experience of the work.
Ho Chi Minh City - Shane's regular base when working from Vietnam, and home to a substantial part of the team.
That is what this page is about. Not the firm in the abstract; the people who built it, and the geography - Australian, Asian, and Latin American - that we built it from.
§ 02 · The partners
Two people do this work.
When you book a consultation, you speak with one of them. Not an account manager. Not a junior. The partner whose name is on the advice is the one who reads your file from the first email to the final lodgement.
Shane founded Expat Taxes in Kuala Lumpur in 2006. Over the past seventeen years he has lived and worked in Malaysia, Indonesia, the United States, and Vietnam - building the practice from each country in turn, and filing his own non-resident returns the entire way. In 2025 Shane and his wife returned to Australia for family reasons, and are now based just outside Melbourne; this is the season they're in, and Shane expects to relocate overseas again in the years ahead. He travels back to Ho Chi Minh City regularly through the year to work alongside the team in Vietnam, and to other cities to meet with clients. Inside the practice, Shane leads residency determinations, departure-tax planning, and the Australian side of U.S. / Australia dual-filer work - and he is the partner most new clients meet first.
There is no advice in expatriate tax that survives a clean reading of the Act. There is only advice that survives a clean reading of the Act and the life of the person filing the return. The second part is the part most firms get wrong.
Terryn joined as partner in 2016. He runs the firm's files from Bogotá, where his wife and son live. He covers the Americas time zones - Australian clients in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and across South America - and leads the firm's superannuation strategy, ESS / RSU work, and returning-resident planning. He filed his own first non-resident return in 2017; he has not stopped.
I run our files from Bogotá. My wife and son are here. My clients are scattered across time zones I can set a watch by. That's the job - and the life. I would not advise on this from anywhere else.
Outside Melbourne, Ho Chi Minh City, Bogotá, and Singapore. Between Australia (AEST), Vietnam (GMT+7), Colombia (GMT - 5) and Singapore (GMT+8) we cover most of the working day, in most of the time zones our clients live in. We are an Australian tax practice; the geography simply reflects the fact that the partners and the team have lived in those geographies, with our clients, for years.
Outside Melbourne
AU · AEST · Founder, current base
Where Shane works from now - family reasons, for the season we're in. Regular travel back to Vietnam and to client cities through the year.
08:00 - 18:00AEST local
Most AU · NZ · AsiaSame-day cover
Ho Chi Minh City
VN · GMT+7 · Vietnam team
Where most of the international team is based. Shane works alongside them whenever he's in country. Asia, the Middle East and Europe are reached most easily from here.
09:00 - 19:00VN local
SG · HK · GCC · EUSame-day cover
Bogotá
CO · GMT - 5 · Partner base
Where Terryn works from. Australian clients in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and across South America run through Terryn here.
08:00 - 18:00CO local
US · CA · LATAMSame-day cover
Singapore
SG · GMT+8 · North Asia team
Where part of our preparation team is based. Files for clients across North Asia - Singapore, Hong Kong, Greater China, Japan - and the Pacific run through here, alongside the Vietnam team.
09:00 - 18:00SG local
KR · JP · CNSame-day cover
~22 hoursDaily client coverage
4 basesAU · VN · CO · SG
1 jurisdictionAustralian tax only
0 daysThat a file sits untouched
§ 04 · What we believe
Six things we will not move on.
01
You speak with a partner.
Always. Not on the first call, not on the easy one. On every call. The partner who signs the advice is the partner who reads the file. We have built the firm small enough to mean it.
02
The advice is the work.
The tax return is an output. The work is the conversation that happens before - about residency, intent, timing, family, the years ahead. Firms that lead with the lodgement get the lodgement wrong, because the advice was missing.
03
We have lived the work.
Between us, twenty-five years of expatriate life. Shane has lived in Malaysia, Indonesia, the United States, and Vietnam; Terryn has filed from Bogotá since 2016. Even with Shane back in Australia for the season, the firm's lived experience of the work is not a brochure line - it's how we got here.
04
Plain English. Always.
Tax law is precise. Tax advice does not have to be opaque. We will write to you in the language a curious adult speaks - not the language a Big-Four memo speaks. If you cannot understand our advice, we have not finished writing it.
05
Precedent before opinion.
We will tell you what we think. We will also tell you what the AAT has decided, what the ATO has ruled, and what the section says. Opinion alone is not advice. Advice is opinion that survives the case law.
06
Specialist when you need it. Capable when you don't.
The expatriate work is what we are known for. It is not all of what we do. We have a reasonable bench of straight-forward Australian-resident clients with no offshore element, and we serve them as well as any general practice would - better, in our view, because the partners read every file. When we genuinely think a different firm is the right home for you, we say so and refer; that happens, but it is not the default.
§ 05 · By the numbers
Twenty years of receipts.
20
Years of practice - established 2006, Kuala Lumpur. The same partner still signs the advice.
2006 - 2026
115
Countries our clients have filed from. From Singapore high-rises to Colombian fincas to Saudi compounds.
All seven continents · ex-Antarctica
3,200+
Australian expatriates we have advised. Most arrive through word of mouth. Most stay across multiple postings.
As at January 2026
5.0 ⋆
Average rating across 343 verified reviews - independently collected and verified by Endorsal.io.
Twelve people, across two offices. Every file passes through a senior chartered accountant. The partners review every piece of written advice that leaves the firm. There is no "associate desk" for the difficult work, because there is no easy work in expatriate tax.
Senior Tax Accountant
Manages annual lodgements & residency reviews
Three on the team. Each carries roughly 200 returning files a year. All three have lived overseas at some point in the last decade.
VN · CO
U.S. Tax Liaison
Australia ↔ U.S. dual filers
We prepare and lodge the Australian return; our trusted U.S. tax partners prepare the 1040 in their jurisdiction. Files are coordinated end-to-end so treaty positions, FITO, and timing line up across both returns.
CO · partner network
Client Services Lead
The first person you'll write to
Routes new enquiries to the right partner, manages document collection, coordinates between offices, and follows up with the ATO when we are still waiting.
VN
Bookkeeping & Compliance
BAS, IAS, and overseas-entity reporting
For clients running Australian sole-trader operations from abroad, or who need bookkeeping support across the year. Two staff.
VN
Now what?
Talk to a partner. No obligation. No junior.
Thirty minutes with Shane or Terryn - at no charge - to look at your situation in detail. We will tell you, in plain English, whether we can help, and what the work would look like.
Expat TaxesWherever you are . . . we've got your Australian taxes covered!
We're that rare breed of accountants that you've been searching for - we specialise in tax returns and tax advice for Australian expatriates.
Got a question? Or want to book a free consultation? Send us a message below:
Relaunch Special$250 expat tax returnsACT FAST - Offer only available to first 20 clients up to 31 Aug 2015
We're the accountants that you've been searching for - we specialise in the preparation of tax returns for Australian expatriates and we've done so for almost 10 years.
Interested in our "$250 Relaunch Special" offer?
Send us your details by 31 August to be eligible and we'll be in touch:
