Taxes

[sofamiliar]

Hey, so I've been jobhunting and it recently occurred to me that I'm still going to need to file taxes in the U.S. (I live in the UK, am a US citizen). Assuming I ever get a job, does anyone know of any good guides to filing taxes abroad, what if any information I need to give to an employer about this, etc.? I've never actually filed my own taxes

Comments

[ladyynara]

It's really not that hard, you can just do it yourself, or get a turbotax cd. You don't need to give any info to your UK employer, you just need to fill out form 2555 to exclude any of your UK income (as long as you earnt less than $80k last year) so that you're not paying taxes to the US and the UK. And fill out form 1040...most of it will be zeroes, and the forms are pretty self explanatory.

[sioneva]

You don't need to give any info to the UK employee, but it can be helpful for them to do a letter for you stating your income for the January-December calendar year. It reassured me that I had legal evidence of my income AND made it easier for me to not have to calculate it all from old payslips (which wouldn't have been entirely accurate anyway, as part of my income was deducted pre-tax and wasn't reflected on my payslip).

Turbotax definitely is the easiest way to go!

[aless02]

Yes, just don't mis-read the directions like I did and wind up reporting that you made -$20,000 :-P. It's a bit confusing when you deal with all the forms, but it really does boil down to the above - a 1040 and a 2555.

[jenepel]

If you earn less than $80K it's not really worth paying for Turbo-Tax becuase there are no calculations to be done, just a simple add and then subtract of income.

There is a an IRS office at the Embassy that will answer questions and show you how to do a simple return. Their website is here.

[mappingcaroline]

Yep, like the others have said, it's quite easy. I had never done it before and I was able to do it alone with instructions from www.irs.gov. You report your UK income after tax, as in, the money you actually took home, and from January to December of the year you're filing so you'll need to add it up from payslips. Both times I did it I took a calculated guess. I did not have to show any proof. I imagine that if you took home more than $82,000 USD equivalent, it's a little more complicated.