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How to report FOREIGN UNEMPLOYMENT income?

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
September 2, 2023
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I will have FOREIGN (South Korean) Employment Insurance (Unemployment) benefits to report next year. How do you report FOREIGN employment insurance/unemployment benefits?

Thank you in advance!

Best answer by pk12_2

@shanesnh , so you are saying that you a US person ( citizen / GreenCard) , living in Korea ( Tax home ) received/ receiving Unemployment benefits . The question is how to report this :

For US tax purposes:

(a) unemployment compensation is reported as additional income ( without a 1099-G ) and shows up on Schedule 1, line 7 " unemployment compensation" Tell TurboTax you have un-employment compensation but no 1099_G.

(b) the next question becomes " Can this income be excluded as part of Foreign Earned Income Exclusion ? Here we hit some trouble since Section 911 does not include this income as "active" nor "other compensation and/or housing expenses etc. Thus my opinion is that you cannot exclude this income under Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. US/ Korea tax treaty is not clear about whom can tax this income but under US laws this taxable income for US.

(c) If Korea taxes this income then your only option is to consider this as "general category income" for purposes of form 1116.

Does this make sense ? Is there more I can do for you ?

However

Employee

pk12_2Answer

Employee

@shanesnh , so you are saying that you a US person ( citizen / GreenCard) , living in Korea ( Tax home ) received/ receiving Unemployment benefits . The question is how to report this :

For US tax purposes:

(a) unemployment compensation is reported as additional income ( without a 1099-G ) and shows up on Schedule 1, line 7 " unemployment compensation" Tell TurboTax you have un-employment compensation but no 1099_G.

(b) the next question becomes " Can this income be excluded as part of Foreign Earned Income Exclusion ? Here we hit some trouble since Section 911 does not include this income as "active" nor "other compensation and/or housing expenses etc. Thus my opinion is that you cannot exclude this income under Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. US/ Korea tax treaty is not clear about whom can tax this income but under US laws this taxable income for US.

(c) If Korea taxes this income then your only option is to consider this as "general category income" for purposes of form 1116.

Does this make sense ? Is there more I can do for you ?

However

Hi there @pk12_2

Thanks for the answer.

So, I can report it as unemployment income in TurboTax even without a 1099-G?

I assume I can't exclude this income under the FEIE, as you said, right?

I did find another post and it said to report it as Miscellaneous Income (https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/taxes/discussion/where-do-i-have-to-include-unemployment-benefits-from-an-foreing-country/01/686205#M276232). Which one would be better? I'm not sure how to even report it as unemployment income w/o a 1099-G in TurboTax Deluxe (PC version).

Thanks so much,

Shane H.