Idiots guide to filing US taxes?

Hi..

just thought Id ask as I have received so much good advice from this forum ... is there an "idiots guide to paying US taxes"?

The situation is this, I am a UKC and pay taxes here, my partner has never had to file taxes as other people (ex wife/family members) did this for him so is about as much use as a chocolate teapot...so I am sat here trying to work out the US tax system and I dunno where to start ...

He's not currently working in the UK and officially moved here this June, hadn't worked in the US since the previous august.. although he does plan to work once we have the FLR(M) visa completed (in November)

I have found this .. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/us-citizens-and-resident-aliens-abroad ...but honestly its not helping much

Is there a how to guide that I've missed?

Many  Thanks

Due to each individual's specific circumstances for each US tax return filed from abroad, no idiots guide exists. However, you may find the following "US Taxes Abroad for Dummies" at least a clue as to where to start. Beware, it's lacking in a great deal of detail.

https://www.americansabroad.org/us-taxes-abroad-for-dummies-update/

The official idiots guide (if the idiots are advanced graduates in international accounting) is found at the following:

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p54.pdf

 

Bless you.

It's hard doing it your first time, I always filed myself but this past year I found myself getting confused and starting over a ton. I used I think tax act which helped me out more than going blindly at it. I filed the year prior with no uk work and I found it was straight forward because you have little or no income to claim.


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Best of luck though, it is completely foreign concept I think to those who've never done it.


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It completely depends on his financial situation and what kinds of accounts he has in the UK.  If he has nothing but a modest bank account, that's one thing, but if he has any bank or securities accounts that trigger the FBAR or 8938, things get complicated quickly. 

To be honest, he can probably do it himself with TurboTax as long as he is careful when it comes to both of the aforementioned forms.  One other option:  hire a professional to do it the first time, and then he can prob do it himself in subsequent years.

The tax situation had been so tricky that I have skipped the last two years...not intentionally, I just kept saying "this is too much for my to sort right now.....I will do it later...." and then I ended up skipping it completely (which I am in no way advocating for). It then just got hard to play catch-up. I don't owe money so it's been okay so far but I now need to renew my passport ASAP and am worried about if it will cause issues there or not (signs point to no as I don't owe money, but it's still nerve wracking).

If you manage to find an easy place to go to help work through that or a person to contact that can help even for a fee, let me know!

Most folks who are delinquent would use the IRS streamlined procedures to reduce the risk of IRS penalties.