Got a few general tax questions

Lived and work all 2011 in the UK and am starting to go through my taxes for the first time as an expat.   It seems as though I need to complete the 1040 and 2555-EZ.  I think I also heard someone mention proof of foreign bank account?

After a few reads of the forms my questions are:
1)For 2011 taxes, I'm supposed to use my earnings from Jan 1-Dec 31, correct?

2)Figuring out my income from GBP to USD; do I just take the IRS yearly average exchange rate of 0.649 (as of Nov 1st)?  If not, how do I figure this out?

3)Bona Fide/ Physical Presence, this seems self explanatory, but just to double check; excluding holidays which included the US I was out of the UK for approx 40 days, which would leave me with 325.  Does that automatically make me Bona Fide and is there a big difference either way?  My earnings are much lower than $92k if that helps to answer.

4) I've used TaxAct in the past but got it got a bit tricky this time around.  Am I just better doing this by hand or is there a better site?

Thanks so much for any help!
Marc

You seem to be doing pretty well.

As fas as the foreign accounts go you are probably thinking of FBAR filing which is needed if you have signature authority over foreign accounts totaling more than $10k.

You might also want to think about your UK tax situation. I imagine you are in PAYE, but if you have any US based income or accounts the interest and gains might be UK taxable if it comes above some value and HMRC considers you to be resident and ordinarily resident.

Also be careful with UK based mutual funds (ie don't buy them) and UK pension contributions as these can have some complex US tax implications.

Hi Marc,

I used turbo tax this year and in my opinion, that was easier than Tax Act (I tried that first & got frustrated!) I'm not great with taxes.  Turbo walks you through the process, which helped me.  I ended up having to print it out (couldn't e-file) because I was married filing separately & DH (a british citizen) doesn't have an SSN.

Good luck!