why: so the government won’t be able to use your money for whatever the fuck they’re planning for the next 4 years.
as a traveler, none of my money has been funding Israel, for example.
one-step method: you basically fill out one extra tax form called FEIE while you’re doing your taxes, write down the dates you were outside of the country, and then since you aren’t in the country and are not receiving any services from the US, you don’t have to pay income tax up to a certain amount (it’s a little over 125k this year).
I always find it mad as hell that Americans have to pay tax in the US even if they are living and earning elsewhere
Especially given generally Americans are pretty allergic to reasonable taxation
yeah it is totally banana stacks, and nobody tells anybody else how to get around that, of course.
since nobody knows the sacred knowledge anyway.
some tax guy, not my tax guy, just a random guy who worked in taxes, offhandedly mentioned it to me like it was no big deal one day and I was like whaaaat?
most of the expats I know just don’t pay taxes because they’re dumb, or they’re paying taxes that they don’t need to because nobody told them about the FEIE.
You still need to file every year. An advisor at least here in Germany can do both countries, but you pay a premium for that.
I addressed that in a comment but I did not include that in the body.
fixed.
The FEIE is super simple to fill out.
pretty sure you have to fill out the 2555 as well bro
you also have to pay tax where you are domicile, aka where you live
I heard you need to file every year even if you’ve never lived in the US.
Depends. For example in Finland the filing is done for you every year by the tax authorities and tax is deducted every month from your salary. Once a year you get either money back or need to pay more if your work situation changes during the year. You can also correct them by saying “hey I paid this bus card” etc. and get money back.
In Germany it works about the same, except they charge you quite a lot more every month. Here you do not have to file, but if you do you usually get a lot of money back. Filing is more complex than in Finland, so you might want to have a tax advisor to do it for you.