Job Discussion Forums

[travelNteach]

interesting discussion.
i dont do privates, but if i did i would make a small little company. where i currently teach, it has to be owned in part by a citizen of this country. i would then pay myself a small hourly wage. basically i would then have a full time job and a part time job and still be under the 90,000 limit.

i have no idea why anyone would want to pay taxes anyway, but that is your personal decision. being that i dont owe any taxes, i can file whenever i want too and there isnt any penalty.

if i am working overseas and working for a local school, i cannot be considered self employed. i am an employee on a time limited contract. there are lots of people in the usa that also now work on time limited contracts. it order to be conisdered self employed, i would have to set up a sole proprietery company owned solely by me and be working for the company as a sub-contractor, not an employee. i guess different countries have different contracts and different ways of approaching employment. i have a one year renewable contract with my school paying my national taxes here. i dont owe US taxes for anything and i am not self employed.

thanks for the links zero. internet here is so slow that i havent had time to read them. i will cheat and get my sister who is a CPA to check it out. either way, it seems simple enough to work around it. and there are millions of people, both citizens and illegal immigrants, who work for cash under the table and never pay taxes yet get all the benefits of subsidized housing, free education, police and fire protection and the like. they dont even attempt to catch them so i seriously doubt that they would fly halfway around the world to see naturegirl made and extra 400 dollars.

the social security sytem became broken 20 years ago when the started allowing other governmental departments to raid it to make up for shortfalls in their budgets. \

about interest rates: cambodia pays 7% on us dollar accounts. in australia u can get 6-7% on australian dollar accounts. this was great a year ago when the rate was 60 cent aussie to 1 us dollar. now it is near parity. so the rate is still good but u could lost your shirt if the exchange rates fell again by the time your cd matured. in new zealand, they have govt and bank bonks that pay over 10%but u have to lock your money in for a number of years, somewhere between 3-5 i believe. again, u have to watch the exchange rate and open the cd when the dollar is strong and and close them when the dollar is weak. they also have dollar accounts, but i dont know what the current rate on them is. vietnam also has high dollar rates on deposits, both savings and cd's. the pay even higher for vietnam money, but it is devaluing so u would probably break even or lose money in the long run........ 1/2 year cd's. u can also make a lot of money on curency exchange, whether it is eruo/pound or dollar/won or almost any currency. sometimes u have to move quickly, sometimes u have to be patient and let the money sit.

there are lots of ways to let your money make you money. and doing these things are not taxable as capital gains taxes and goes under regular earnings. i would rather be in charge of my own money, they a group of men that put billions of dollars of pork bellies in every bill they pass. nothing short of bribery. and who have overspent trillions and trillions of dollars each year. i dont think my bank would cover my checks if i did that. china has bought up so much american debt that they will soon own the country if they dont already.

sorry about the rant.

[naturegirl321]

[travelNteach]

[naturegirl321]

[elamericano]

[naturegirl321]

[travelNteach]

@ NG: about FASFA i completely missed the boat. thanks for your pleasant comment.

and i think we are not listening well to each other, so no sense to hijack the thread. i have a minor in accounting and worked as a employee, sub-contractor, piece worker, self-employed, and consultant, and owned my own businesses hiring up to 20 employees.

its ok if u want to discount eveything i say about the tax law. i am not having problems with my taxes or SS. but even IRS and SS employees will give u different answers to the same questions. u seem very concerned with your taxes, which is fine. perhaps the best solution would be to hire a competent CPA in the states that specializes in expat citizens with both primary and secondary incomes. i am sure the peace of mind he would give u, the money u might save on taxes, and credits for SS would be worth his fees. i am sure that he would be a much more knowledgable and reliable source of information than teachers who just pick up bits and pieces of the tax law on our journey thru the ESL life.

with that i will drop out of this thread. best wishes to everyone on their taxes and living life overseas

[Zero]

I personally think naturegirl is doing it exactly right, according to the law. Getting cash for private lessons is one thing, but the writing income is traceable if one were audited. Also, if it is greater than (either $400 or $600, I forget which) from a single U.S. client, the client would send a 1099 to both naturegirl and the IRS. If naturegirl didn't report it, the IRS would eventually come knocking to ask about it because the records didn't line up. I've seen it happen.

The only sticky area to me is whether it is legal to perform such work on the side under Korean law, and whether it should be taxed under Korean law. And if it were me, I would not spend one second worrying about it. When you're sitting at your computer in your apartment, the Korean government has no way of knowing if you're earning sending email, looking at porn, or earning $100,000 through freelance writing. Or all of the above. And I'd argue that it's not their business.

[Perilla]

My wife is from the US. Last year she filed her tax return for the first time after 12 years of living in Asia. Nightmare. She employed an accountant here in HK to help, and he cost a good chunk. The paperwork still took her an age to sort out. And she wound up having to pay around 2 or 3,000 US in tax as she makes over the 90K threshold. At least she's "clean" now after worrying over not filing her returns for years ... but boy am I glad we don't have to do this in the UK.

[naturegirl321]

[naturegirl321]