worldwide income tax

G

greencarder

Registered Users (C)
Can someone guide me to ways with which I can claim deduction of my foreign income. I understand that if one makes less than $ 90000 a year they are not required to pay taxes for them. Is there a software out there that is easy to use as I file my income tax? I worked 7 months in the US and 4 months in a foreign country.
 
If I'm not mistaken......

(1) IRS

- You can claim FEIE (Foreign Earned Income Exemption) on a basis of few things: bone-fide residence, tax treaties, tax home and physical presence. You can claim income and housing exclusion. The toal exclusion is limited up to $82,400, i.e. you can make for example $150,000, but only $82,400 of that income would eventually qualify for FEIE.

- My understanding is that you want to use physical absence basis. I do not think you would qualify since you were not more than 330 days outside of US.

- If you want more details, you can look for IRS Form 2555 and associated instructions:

Form: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f2555.pdf
Instructions: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f2555.pdf

(2) USCIS

Filing under FFEI provisions can have serious impact on your immigration N-400 application. For example: if you use bona-fide residence or foreign tax home, you are almost certainly presumed that you abandoned US residency.

You could use physical presence (if you qualified)...but that pushes you on the edge in terms of physical presence/continuous residency requirements for your N-400 application. Think about it - 330 days per year (that is a lot) !!! Also, if you have too much absence from US, you can potentially loose your residency status.

If you ever file 2555 and you have problems with lenght of your stay in US, IO officers will ask to see the form.

You can not sit on two chairs - not pay taxes and hope to become citizen.

(3) Software

There are two main products: Tax Cut and TurboTax. They are not expensive ($20-$50; depending on version).

However, while software can be helpful, it is not going to solve your problem since you do not know what you are doing.

On the brighter side, you can pay $20-$30 call to tax lawyer, who can help you sort this issue out. However, be careful, because this lawyer WILL NOT care about tax implications on your citizenship application and can get you in trouble with USCIS easily.

My opinion (even if you pay the guy)....you will not learn anything that I did not tell you here.

Briefly, If I were you....I would forget about world-wide income exlusion(s) at the moment...

P.S.: I'm not a (tax) lawyer or an immigration expert. I'm just an ordinary guy. You are soley responsible for your actions.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Superstring said:
If I'm not mistaken......

(1) IRS

- You can claim FEIE (Foreign Earned Income Exemption) on a basis of few things: bone-fide residence, tax treaties, tax home and physical presence. You can claim income and housing exclusion. The toal exclusion is limited up to $82,400, i.e. you can make for example $150,000, but only $82,400 of that income would eventually qualify for FEIE.

- My understanding is that you want to use physical absence basis. I do not think you would qualify since you were not more than 330 days outside of US.

- If you want more details, you can look for IRS Form 2555 and associated instructions:

Form: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f2555.pdf
Instructions: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f2555.pdf

(2) USCIS

Filing under FFEI provisions can have serious impact on your immigration N-400 application. For example: if you use bona-fide residence or foreign tax home, you are almost certainly presumed that you abandoned US residency.

You could use physical presence (if you qualified)...but that pushes you on the edge in terms of physical presence/continuous residency requirements for your N-400 application. Think about it - 330 days per year (that is a lot) !!! Also, if you have too much absence from US, you can potentially loose your residency status.

If you ever file 2555 and you have problems with lenght of your stay in US, IO officers will ask to see the form.

You can not sit on two chairs - not pay taxes and hope to become citizen.

(3) Software

There are two main products: Tax Cut and TurboTax. They are not expensive ($20-$50; depending on version).

However, while software can be helpful, it is not going to solve your problem since you do not know what you are doing.

On the brighter side, you can pay $20-$30 call to tax lawyer, who can help you sort this issue out. However, be careful, because this lawyer WILL NOT care about tax implications on your citizenship application and can get you in trouble with USCIS easily.

My opinion (even if you pay the guy)....you will not learn anything that I did not tell you here.

Briefly, If I were you....I would forget about world-wide income exlusion(s) at the moment...

P.S.: I'm not a (tax) lawyer or an immigration expert. I'm just an ordinary guy. You are soley responsible for your actions.
Click to expand...

Thanks my friend. I have a similar thought.
 
Listen to Superstring's advice - particularly the bit about not inadvertently filing as a non-resident/FEIE. Doing that will surely earn you some unwanted questioning at interview.

Unless your foreign employment was part of an overseas assignment by your US employer, you might also wish to prepare yourself with a good explanation, as its generally considered a negative factor against continuous residence.
 
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