CWMcMurray Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 I work in Thailand and need to file my taxes and was hoping to find a way to file on-line, but have yet to find any online submission format that will also allow you to claim the overseas income exemption. I finally settled for filing an extension online .... I guess if I have to, I can print and mail everything in, but would much rather file online. Does anyone have any experience with this? If so, has anyone found a website that will allow you to file an overseas income exemption along with your online tax filing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimGant Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 Believe Tax Act addresses the foreign income exclusion (Form 2555), plus they allow you to efile with a foreign address (unlike, apparently, Turbotax). See this LINK (I have no personal experience with this, but hope this helps.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
givenall Posted April 13, 2011 Share Posted April 13, 2011 (edited) You cannot fill US taxes online. You can only efile, butstill have to use programs like TurboTax to do your taxes and then efile. This wayyou have digitally signed your taxes. Or you can have an accountant to do thisfor you You cannot fill US taxes online. You can only efile, butstill have to use programs like TurboTax to do your taxes and then efile. This wayyou have digitally signed your taxes. Or you can have an accountant to do thisfor you May be is just as easy to print the forms online and filland mail to IRS Edited April 13, 2011 by givenall Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lopburi3 Posted April 13, 2011 Share Posted April 13, 2011 EFile is done on-line so only a few hours difference (mine has always been accepted within 24 hours). And I have been doing it for the last decade with no issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CWMcMurray Posted April 13, 2011 Author Share Posted April 13, 2011 Dear Jim, Thank you for the recommendation and I did try Tax Act and they do offer the overseas exemption (Form 2555) and went through the whole process, but at the very last point when I hit the button to accept 'EFile' a message cam up advising that I could not EFile because I did not have any taxable income. 100% of my income is from earnings in Thailand and I do not have anything in the US but a no interest checking account, so does this mean I can not Efile? Dear Lopburi, You have mentioned that you have been EFiling for the last 10 yrs, can you advise what program you use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lopburi3 Posted April 13, 2011 Share Posted April 13, 2011 I do use TaxAct but I also have taxable retirement and interest so have not experienced your condition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CWMcMurray Posted April 13, 2011 Author Share Posted April 13, 2011 Well since I couldn't EFile, I saved the completed forms... looks like I will need to print them out and mail them in... Just received confirmation that my extension request was accepted, so I can send them by post after Songkran. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimGant Posted April 15, 2011 Share Posted April 15, 2011 (edited) but at the very last point when I hit the button to accept 'EFile' a message cam up advising that I could not EFile because I did not have any taxable income. Interesting. You would think the negative number in line 21, Form 1040, (from Form 2555) would have triggered something a little more interesting. Maybe not being able to Efile with no TI is a quirk of TaxACT? But, for sure, you are required to file: For purposes of determining whether you must file a return, gross income includes any income that you can exclude as foreign earned income or as a foreign housing amount Try filing with the Fed's free Efile, see HERE Edited April 15, 2011 by JimGant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CWMcMurray Posted April 15, 2011 Author Share Posted April 15, 2011 You get a positive number in line 7 and a negative number in line 21, which leads to a total income of 0... I took a look at the rest of the sites listed on the IRS Free File site... Most require you to reside in the USA (states are listed). Only a few allow you to have a foreign address. I tried the few that mention that you can have a foreign address and none seem to work in my situation. No worries, I will just need to mail it in. Does anyone know if you get any sort of confirmation from the IRS if mailed and in no refund or taxes are owed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kokesaat Posted April 15, 2011 Share Posted April 15, 2011 I've used taxact for free efiling for years, but this year, after filling in all the forms, I was also denied. No problem, I simply selected another company from the irs.gov website. Before I began filling in forms, I went through the short quiz to see if I was eligible for efiling. I was....I filed....my return was direct deposited to my stateside account in days. I used our daughter's stateside address (which I use for a variety of purposes, credit cards, schwab, etc). Freetaxusa.com was the company that I selected from the irs's list of companies that offer free filing. I have no income....just pension, interest, dividends. Free! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimGant Posted April 16, 2011 Share Posted April 16, 2011 Does anyone know if you get any sort of confirmation from the IRS if mailed and in no refund or taxes are owed? No confirmation at all (unless you get audited). Send by certified mail. I used to have my excess withholding credited as a next-year's estimated tax payment. But, since the IRS doesn't confirm receipt of tax form, I never knew if that credit would "bounce" with next year's filing, or not. Now, however, I guess the "accepted" when you Efile is sufficient evidence that they've received your filing.... (which, of course, doesn't do you any good.... ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CWMcMurray Posted April 17, 2011 Author Share Posted April 17, 2011 No confirmation at all (unless you get audited). Send by certified mail. I used to have my excess withholding credited as a next-year's estimated tax payment. But, since the IRS doesn't confirm receipt of tax form, I never knew if that credit would "bounce" with next year's filing, or not. Now, however, I guess the "accepted" when you Efile is sufficient evidence that they've received your filing.... (which, of course, doesn't do you any good.... ) That's what I thought... It is also one of the main reasons I really wanted to EFILE... As I will not be paying any taxes or receiving any refund, it would have been nice to have some confirmation from someone that my taxes were received. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfchandler Posted April 17, 2011 Share Posted April 17, 2011 This year, I'm going to try doing this myself online for the first time vs. paying a tax preparer... Living abroad, using a U.S. address for my filing.... Just pension and interest income... Any of the veterans here have any suggestion of the merits of using TurboTax vs. TaxACT vs. FreeTaxUSA.com I'm trying to stick my toe into the water.... Just not sure which pond is going to be the best/smartest fit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lopburi3 Posted April 17, 2011 Share Posted April 17, 2011 Suspect they will all work with US address. I know TaxAct works with my foreign address for the same pension/interest type filing. I do use US bank account for refunds/payment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Langsuan Man Posted April 17, 2011 Share Posted April 17, 2011 This year, I'm going to try doing this myself online for the first time vs. paying a tax preparer... Living abroad, using a U.S. address for my filing.... Just pension and interest income... Any of the veterans here have any suggestion of the merits of using TurboTax vs. TaxACT vs. FreeTaxUSA.com I'm trying to stick my toe into the water.... Just not sure which pond is going to be the best/smartest fit. I recommend Turbo Tax but have not tried the rest. Go to your brokerage web site and they probably have a tie in with Turbo Tax which gives you a very good discount on using it for the first year The feature I like the most is that Turbo Tax will go directly into my brokerage account and do all those pesky little long term / short term capital gains, regular / special dividends, Schedules, etc. And will remember your Capital Loss / Gains from previous years once you start using it year to year Since I have been using it for several years it also compares figures for the previous years and alerts me to what I put in last year to make sure I cover everything Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kokesaat Posted April 17, 2011 Share Posted April 17, 2011 I used taxact for several years....always efiled for free. But this year, after filing out the forms, taxact said I didn't qualify to efile with their program. No problem....I went with freetaxusa and filed successfully. Nothing complicated....pension, mutual funds, interest, dividends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfchandler Posted April 17, 2011 Share Posted April 17, 2011 (edited) Thanks to everyone above for the comments and recommendations, and particularly to LSM for spelling out a specific distinguishing feature for TurboTax... BTW, I found it kind of interesting... I've been saving the different bank web site promo tie-ins for Turbo Tax, figuring I might end up using one of them... And now when I sit down to compare the different TurboTax offerings made via different banks and CUs, I find quite different pricing for their paid packages other than the free 1040 EZ and simple returns... For example, via BofA, the TT deluxe package was discounted to $32.45, the premier package to $48.70 and the Home and Business package to $64.95. Via E*Trade, the same three TT packages were priced at $37.45, $56.20 and $74.95... Via a credit union that specializes in serving military folks, the TT rates were $42.45, $68.70 and $84.95... Rarely do I ever find a reason to say anything good about BofA... But this may be an actual exception to that. Edited April 17, 2011 by jfchandler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimGant Posted April 17, 2011 Share Posted April 17, 2011 A few more tidbits from this link: "United States Taxpayers Living Abroad" A key point from this article is: U.S. citizens and resident aliens living outside the United States may use IRS Free File toprepare and electronically file their federal tax returns, according to the Internal Revenue Service This article has a link to the "Free File" list of commercial tax programs -- but "free" means having an AGI of less than $58,000. But, if you don't need a lot of handholding doing your taxes, there's the Fed's "Free File Fillable Form", which has no $58k cap. And, it does do the Form 2555. See HERE And, CW, I saw some advice on a Turbotax forum from someone having Form 2555 problems. By putting "$1" in the 1040 interest line, he trickphucked the system to accept the negative line 21. Yes, Turbotax can't be Efiled with a foreign address. But maybe this trick works with other tax programs too...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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