Expat Finances Megathread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Expat Finances Megathread

Adar: Jul 27, 2001

Anonymous Zebra posted:

So I have a random question about the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. I moved to a foreign country for work in September 2013, started work in October and will be working here for quite a long time. For the last few months I've been under the assumption that I cannot utilize the FEIE for my 2013 taxes because I was not a resident of the foreign country for the entire tax year. However, today I did a short 30 minute consultation with a big-wig tax attorney and HE told me that since I have 3 months (1/4 of the year) of foreign income that I simply divide the exclusion amount by 1/4 and only exclude 1/4 of the yearly maximum ($24,400 in this case).

This seems contrary to everything I read, but to make matters worse the actual tax attorney is too expensive for me and he suggested I just use a basic tax software to complete my taxes since they are relatively simple. This puts me in the odd position of doing my own taxes and being unsure if I should follow the advice of an actual tax attorney over what I read on the internet...even if what I've read seems abundantly clear.

This is wrong. However, you can still use the entire FEIE. The FEIE physical presence test does not work off the calendar year or the tax year. It is applied as of the time you file the tax.

In other words:

-wait until June (you get an automatic 3 month extension if you are abroad)
-file for another extension, which will last until October 15th
-in October, file for 2013 using your full FEIE as long as you meet the 330 day test at that time

As long as you don't take any extended vacations in the States you will be fine.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2014 18:03

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 08:51

Adar: Jul 27, 2001

shrike82 posted:

I'd recommend using HSBC if you expect to be moving around as an expat for a while.
I have a Premier account with them and I believe they have a better footprint across the world than any of the American banks.

For the poster upstream who's earning USD and living in London for a while, shouldn't you be thinking about hedging your exposure to GBPUSD?

All of this. Their other accounts are poo poo, but Premier gives you a good conversion rate and some excellent side perks like free travel insurance which is huge when flying back to the States.

What do we think about GBP/USD moving forward?

# ¿ Jun 17, 2014 08:38

Adar: Jul 27, 2001

I use family, but yes, a US credit card/address is still very useful for shopping and something you should keep if possible.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2015 19:25

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