Every piece carries the date it was written and the tax year of every figure in it. Where a procedure or a threshold changes, the article is updated and the change is recorded rather than quietly edited.
Published flat fees run about $400 to $800 for the return alone, and what the price includes matters more than the price. What $599 covers, where a low quote becomes a high bill, and what to ask before you hire.
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If you are owed a refund or owe nothing, there is no late-filing penalty at all. If you owe, the numbers are calculable — and usually smaller than they are imagined.
Separately by default, jointly by election, or as head of household. The choice turns on your spouse's income and assets, and the joint election cannot be made again once it ends.
Owning it reports nothing. Renting it is Schedule E income the exclusion cannot touch, and a sale is measured in dollars — so a flat that broke even locally can still show a gain.
The inheritance is not income and carries no US tax. The reporting is where the cost sits — Form 3520 over $100,000, and a penalty that reaches a quarter of what you received.
No form, no fee, and no approval notice: the IRS writes back only if the answer is no. What the letter has to contain, and what it does not cover.
Only from taxable compensation — and income removed by the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion does not count. When the exclusion leaves you no room, and what a contribution made anyway costs.
A separate filing, to a separate agency, with separate penalties — and since July 2026, without the written no-penalty promise that used to cover late filers.
Four dates, and the one that applies depends on where you live, whether you extended, and whether you owe. The payment deadline is not one of the ones that moves.
A light local charge sounds like good news and is mostly neutral: no Malaysian tax on US income means no credit, and above the exclusion the US collects.
Currency translation is not a formality here. Which rate you use for income and for the tax paid changes the credit, and the answer has to be consistent.
The treaty's teaching and research article is narrow and time-limited, not a general exemption. What actually costs money is Schedule SE.
The exit charge is the one to plan around: South Africa deems a disposal when you leave, and the US taxes the same gain when it is actually realised.
Everywhere else the treaty exists and the totalization agreement does not. Brazil is the inversion, so self-employment tax is relievable and the income tax side is bare.
Day 183 changes everything: Colombia starts taxing your US income, and there is no treaty to allocate between the two systems.
The mechanical questions have answers here. The judgement moves to pensions, dual nationality and which income category you are actually in.
The treaty settles the income tax. It cannot touch the self-employment charge, which is the whole liability for most Americans working from Bali or Jakarta.
The treaty defers an RRSP and does nothing at all for a TFSA. That gap is where most of the work on a Canadian return actually sits.
Signed is not in force. The 2004 totalization agreement provides nothing, whoever says otherwise — and Mexican residency turns on more than a day-count.
Territorial taxation is the whole story. No Costa Rican tax on US-source income means no credit, and the exclusion carries the return alone.
A TIEA is not a treaty. It improves transparency between two governments and gives you no residency article, no pension article and no relief.
The treaty handles the income tax. What it does not handle is the accounts: PFICs, PPF and EPF, and NRE interest that is exempt in India and taxable in America.
One of the oldest US treaties still in force. It relieves double income tax and carries almost none of the machinery a modern treaty would.
No treaty does not mean no credit. Form 1116 works on the statute; what is missing is everything a treaty would have added around it.
Rates moved. Any comparison of the exclusion against the credit built on pre-reform assumptions is answering a question that no longer exists.
Two Norwegian charges, two different answers: the bracket tax is creditable, the wealth tax is not. Keeping them apart is what makes Form 1116 right.
At roughly 52% combined the credit is not a close call. The scheme that lowers the Danish bill is what makes it one again.
The salary is straightforward. Super is not — it is tax-favoured in Australia and not clearly a pension for US treaty purposes.
A treaty relieves double income tax; only a totalization agreement relieves double social security. New Zealand has one and not the other.
Signed is not in force, here as elsewhere. And a Polish exemption that removes Polish tax does not remove US tax — it just removes the credit that would have covered it.
In a 45% country the credit almost always wins. At 15% and 23% it often does not, and claiming it can leave US tax the exclusion would have removed.
The salary side is straightforward at Swedish rates. The ISK is not: Sweden taxes a deemed return, the US taxes the real one, and a treaty does not bridge that.
Two Americans on identical salaries in different cantons pay different Swiss tax, and therefore carry different US credits. The canton is a US tax decision.
Splitting the payslip correctly is most of the work on an Irish return: USC belongs on Form 1116, PRSI belongs to the totalization agreement.
NHR closed; a narrower incentive replaced it. Which regime you are under decides your Portuguese rate, and your Portuguese rate decides your credit.
The counter-intuitive one: a regime that saves Spanish tax can cost American tax, because the credit is limited to what you actually paid abroad.
Reduced Italian tax means a reduced credit on Form 1116. The regimes are still worth having; they are not worth assuming.
The ruling moves tax rather than removing it: exempting salary from Dutch tax shrinks the foreign tax credit, and the rate itself changes in 2027.
The treaty handles the salary. What it does not handle is the ISA, the 25% tax-free lump sum, or a tax year that starts in April while the US one starts in January.
At German effective rates the credit is rarely a close call. The items worth attention are church tax, which is creditable, and the pension products, which are not what they look like.
One of the few genuinely retrospective wins in expat tax sits in France: CSG and CRDS are creditable, and years still open can be corrected.
A treaty without a totalization agreement, which leaves 15.3% standing on every dollar a remote worker earns — and a Thai remittance rule that changed what gets taxed here.
No treaty, no totalization agreement, and rates low enough that the exclusion generally wins — which is the opposite of the advice that travels with people from Europe.
Signed is not in force. Until ratification completes there is no treaty position, no reduced withholding and no tie-breaker — only the ordinary foreign tax credit.
A treaty and a totalization agreement, rates high enough that Form 1116 normally wins, and a tax-free Japanese wrapper that is nothing of the sort on the US return.
A treaty, a totalization agreement, and two decisions that actually move the number: the 19% flat election, and whether the credit or the exclusion fits your year.
A treaty relieves double income tax; only a totalization agreement relieves double social security — and China has the first without the second.
No treaty, no totalization agreement, and relief that would arrive by legislation rather than by treaty — so Form 1116 is the whole of the machinery.
No treaty and no totalization agreement, and every allowance in a Doha package is pay on the US return — which is what pushes a comfortable salary past the exclusion.
No treaty and no totalization agreement, and the deduction on your payslip is insurance rather than income tax — so the exclusion carries the return with nothing held in reserve.
No treaty and no totalization agreement, and no Omani income tax until 2028 — which makes the exclusion-versus-credit decision you take now a five-year one.
No treaty and no totalization agreement, so the exclusion and the housing exclusion carry the return — and self-employment tax still applies in full, combat zone or not.
Zero personal income tax means nothing to credit — the exclusion and the housing exclusion do the work, and a free-zone company brings Form 5471 into the picture.
No treaty, no totalization agreement, and no local income tax — the exclusion carries the return, and the end-of-service benefit is the item most often mistimed.
The treaty credits Bangladeshi income tax, but self-employment tax still applies in full to the NGO and development-sector consultants who make up so much of this group.
The treaty credits Moroccan income tax, but self-employment tax still applies in full to freelancers and remote workers — and at 37%, the credit usually beats the exclusion for employees.
What is due on the date, whether you can extend past it, what your foreign accounts owe, and what happens if it passes without you filing.
A complete return takes about two weeks once the documents are complete, and considerably longer when they arrive one at a time.
Most years, preparation is enough. Advisory work earns its fee when a decision is still open — a move, a new foreign account, an election that binds for five years.
The IRS terminated the procedure around 1 July 2026. Late FBARs now travel with a Streamlined submission or a reasonable-cause statement — and the non-willful penalty stays at $16,536, because the 2026 inflation increase was cancelled by OMB M-26-11.
What you file, when it is due, and which forms attach — with each figure carrying its tax year.
Who is a nonresident alien for tax purposes, and what that changes on the return.
The substantial presence test, the green-card test, and the returns each one produces.
Why leaving the country does not always end a state filing obligation, and what breaks it.
Moving every few months makes the physical presence test the hard part, not the income.
The exclusion, the housing exclusion, the credit, timing, retirement accounts and state residency.
If an article raised a question about your own return, fifteen minutes will answer it.
An IRS Enrolled Agent working only on US tax for Americans living abroad. I prepare and sign every return myself — 14 years in practice, 11 of them as an Enrolled Agent.