Korean Job Discussion Forums

[warren pease]

Has anyone here had any lucky filing US taxes online? I've tried a couple different sites and keep getting caught up. To be specific, I was in Korea all of last year and did not make over $86,000, so the filing is really just a formality.

The sites keep asking for things that i couldn't possibly have like W-2
's with Employer Identification Numbers. To be honest I don't even have my pay stubs from last year and just plan on rounding way way up.

any advice or relevant information would be greatly appreciated

[freshking]

Just download the 1040. I think the other form you need is an 1116?? Anyway, google the IRS overseas exemption form or something to that effect and you should get the form you need. After you file with them once, if you're here next year they'll just mail all of the forms to your apt. You get an automatic 3 month extension since you're out of country as well, so don't worry about the April 15th deadline. Hope that helps.

[Forward Observer]

I used H&R block, filed the foreign earned income option and got an error at the end about the w-2 part. I couldn't file online because of the error...

Had to print it out and add a little note explaining what's up. This has happened two years in a row. Last year it was accepted - made a copy of last year's and added it along with this year return. Hopefully all will go well. The 2555 form is the one you're talking about I believe.

[T-J]

http://turbotax.intuit.com/

No worries this year, and it was a fairly complex tax year. I will definitely be using them going forward.

[Jati]

Years ago I used a tax accountant who showed me how to submit an attachment that served as my W-2. You basically have "Supplemental Schedules" attachments, labelled Note 1, Note 2, and etc.

For me, Note 1 shows my Malaysian income in US$ equivalent. There is a website that shows what the average exchange rate was for 2008, and I download this and save in my records.

E.g.
Income Taxes Withheld
Source T/S C Gross Wages SS Wages Med Wages Fed SS Med St L
xxxx College (Foreign Entity; No W-2)
T R $17,222.22*
* Exchange rate of RM3.33 = US$1 used; average rate for 2008.

Basically, Source = name of your Korean school
Gross wages converted into US$ at average exchange rate for 2008.
All others are 0: Social Security Wages, Medicare Wages, SS withheld, Medicare withheld, and etc.

I forget what the T/S refer to, but I just follow what the accountant put down in that first year.

On the Form 1040, Line 7, where it asks for W-2 wages, write: "see Note 1" in the dotted space before the line where you enter your Korean wages.

Anything you do, photocopy and save your records and forms before submitting. You want to be able to defend what you did and justify it. You can plead ignorance, of course, but the IRS will look more favorably on those who make the attempt (or the appearance of an attempt) at calculating their fair share of taxes.

And yes, this year the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion is a nice $87,600!

All overseas filers must file Form 2555. This can be downloaded from http://www.irs.gov along with an instructions booklet. The FEI exclusion is listed on line 21 Form 1040 as a negative number [in parentheses()] and subtracted from the column. Also write in: Form 2555 Exclusion on that line.

I am not a tax accountant, but have been filing from overseas for 13 years, so if you have a few questions, feel free to ask. I haven't tried TurboTax but know that people have found that to be useful. I simply do it myself (it takes maybe 2 hours) and send off in the mail, saving copies for my records.

[Rory_Calhoun27]

from what I read at the IRS site, you go get an AUTOMATIC 2 month extension if you are overseas.... and you file the paperwork for the extension when you FILE.... this sound right?

[Jati]

[harlowethrombey]

[mmace1]

http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=201897,00.html

^ So you can electronically fill in the 1040/etc. forms online, and that way save on postage/things getting lost in the mail/etc., if you haven't already filed that is.

I'm in the same situation as you though, and am just now going through this process for the first time.

For those using TurboTax - did you use the $50 deluxe version, or the free one?

[mmace1]

For anyone still looking, or who even find this next year - I just e-filed for free.

Go to the IRS list of free efile companies. The only one I found that would work with foreign income was "Turbotax Freedom Edition", which was quite easy to use.

http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp?ck

30 minutes to finish, and owe no US taxes, naturally.

[PRagic]

What if you don't qualify to use the TurboTax Freedom Edition? You have to make under 30K, be in the military, or qualify for the earned income credit.

[mmace1]

I'm not sure - you could:

Pay for the real version of Turbotax (I think the cheapest version is $50),

File on your own, either using the mail, or the earlier link I gave for filing on your own with electronic documents.

Additionally, via the IRS-free efile link, OLT OnLine Taxes seemed to be working. However, I was doing all these different services concurrently, and Turbotax looked the easiest, so I didn't try to complete the OLT OnLine Taxes option, to make sure it truly worked/was free.

Although, I think most English teachers in Korea make under $30,000 a year in their base salary.

Using the IRS exchange rates, if you made under 2.75 mil won/month ) in base wage, you're under $30,000/year. Turbotax doesn't factor in the fact that we have low/no taxes, and I don't *think* it factors in the housing allotment, though you could just "forget" to include the housing allocation, or "underestimate" it to get yourself under $30,000.


IRS yearly average exchange rates: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=206089,00.html

[Goku]

Bump,

I found this incredibly useful.

[warren pease]

So, I was using the turbo tax free edition and everything was going great until I tried to apply for the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. Turbo Tax then told me that I would have to upgrade to the basic turbo tax ($29.95) if I wanted to continue.

Did this happen to anyone else?

Can anyone confirm that they were able to go through the Foreign earned income stuff?

Any advice or input would be greatly appreciated.

thx

[PRagic]

Poster above states, "The only one I found that would work with foreign income was "Turbotax Freedom Edition", which was quite easy to use.."

My question is about filing categories if you're married to a Korean citizen. In the instructions, it says that you have to apply for and provide a tax identification number (TID) for your foreign spouse, even if she is a non-resident alien.

According to the instructions, it doesn't matter if you file 'married filing jointly' (who the hell would do THAT anyway) or 'married filing separately'.

Any input from a US citizen married to a Korean citizen would be greatly appreciated.