Question

I live and work in a foreign country as a dual national. My employer doesn't provide me with W2 because I'm hired under the other nationality. Where do I file my income?

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
May 20, 2022
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TurboTax Deluxe Online

Employee

@osama_momen , just to be sure that am understanding your situation correctly :

(a) you a US person ( Citizen ) live in a foreign country --- { which country , when did you enter / set-up household in that country, is your family there with you , are they also citizen / Resident of the US ?}

(b) you work in that country { again which country, are you employed by a local entity / company/ employer, do you pay taxes on your income, etc.? }

(c) Your employer provides you an income statement { it shows the total amount paid to , any taxes paid on that income, any retirement contributions etc, any social security equivalent taxes etc. etc. -- yes ? }

(d) this is your first year preparing a US return while being working and living min a foreign country {yes?}

While I await your answers to the questions in the brackets , generally US taxes you on your world income -- with some incomes exclusions / foreign tax credits available to reduce the double taxation bite. TurboTax can help you prepare your tax return and does easily handle the foreign income and its implications. Please answer my questions and one of us will help you on this .

pk

O

osama_momenAuthor

Thank you for your reply

I have established home in Saudi Arabia since 1994. I have always filed my taxes since I started working using turbo tax. It used to let me enter my income info without need to input any W2 info but it looks that this has changed this heat as I can’t progress past that page without. Below the answers to the questions

- I live in Saudi Arabia and I fulfill the physical presence requirements as well as the bona fide resident requirements. My family is with me for the past 10+ years and they are all dual nationals

- I’m employed as a Saudi by a foreign affiliate of a US business. We do pay taxes in the form of mandatory “social security” deductions which - according a PWC consultant - are taxes

- I do have a payslip that’s has all the compensation and deduction details.

- not the first year doing my taxes. I’ve been doing it on Turbo tax for close to 20 years

If I may ask, under which field do I enter my foreign earned income? Thanks

P

pk12_2

Employee

@osama_momen , understand the situation, to the extent explained in your response. Thank you.

I have no experience with TurboTax On-line version but should be substantially similar to the windows desktop version. The steps to enter and exclude your foreign earned income is as follows :

1. Under Personal and then Personal Income, chose " I will choose what I work on", Continue

2. You should now see a screen "Your 2021 Income Summary. On this screen scroll down all the way to the bottom.

3. Now under the paragraph " Less Common Income, half way down the list you will see " Foreign Earned Income and Exclusion" --- select "start" button to the right of this line.

This will now walk you through form 2555 for purposes of excluding foreign earned income up to the max allowed for this year.

Two points to note --- (a) Saudi Arabia does not have a tax treaty with the USA --- there is no income tax there .; (b) PWC 's comment on "Social Security " equivalent that you pay in SA, is not income tax and therefore is not eligible for foreign tax credit ( on foreign incomes no excluded ). Also because there is no totalization agreement between SA and USA, you may be liable for US FICA taxes . ( I have not studied this area for SA but for many countries social security may have to be considered at least for self-employed foreign earnings ).

Is there more I can do for you ?

pk