What should I put for "date started living in a foreign country"

Although I am a US citizen, I have lived in the UK all my life, apart from one semester at a US university in 2004.

I believe therefore that I meet the Bona Fide residence test for the years I am filing, but what should I put for "date started living in a foreign country"?

Should I put my birth date, or should I put the day I returned from the US to the UK (December 2004)? I don't consider myself to have been properly resident in the US during that time since I was there to study and had no plans to stay permanently (in the UK at least I know studying does not count as proper residence).

Did you have any contact with the IRS during that semester in 2004?

I don't think (IMHO) it really matters that much. Nine years is more than enough time to establish Bona Fide residence outside the US, which is what they're really interested in. I would suggest using the year of your birth.

Did you have any contact with the IRS during that semester in 2004?

I was employed and got a social security number but I don't remember anything directly IRS related.

Thanks for the help.

In that case, I would put 2004 just to be safe. Again, it should not have any bearing for the purposes of 2555.

Are you filing quietly or noisily? Why did you not file in 2004 if you had US source income that year?

Are you filing quietly or noisily? Why did you not file in 2004 if you had US source income that year?

I honestly just had no idea about it. I was there starting a PhD but I returned to the UK because I got mono so I was generally having a bad time that year. I didn't realise I would have to file as a student and assumed it worked the same way as in the UK (that any tax due would be removed from my funding at source - I was working as a TA) and that I would be below any thresholds for individual filing. I received no advice from the university.

I am now filing "noisily" I think - I plan to submit 2010-2012 under the Streamlined compliance program. I have no tax to pay for any of those years for sure (earned income is always <40% of foreign threshold, unearned income < 10% of standard deduction) so I hope I will be "low risk" although I do have bank accounts in different countries. So I am putting a cover letter explaning that I was resident in the different countries at different times (I never opened an account in a country I was not resident in at the time).

The main outstanding things I am not sure of are: how to handle my UK pension (only 4 months in 2012 but still would like to get it right), how to handle a large-ish moving allowance (I have just put it in the earned income, still safely within foreign exclusion limit), and for 2013 what to do about my 6 months of holding a UK Vanguard fund in a stocks and shares ISA (no gain).

I have to say on my second week of this now I am wondering if there is any light at the end of the tunnel! It seems unbelievable burdonsome - I don't mean the streamlined program, I appreciate I should have been filing and those earlier years would have been simple enough to file as I had no pension and no savings, but now I do it seems impossibly complicated just to do the most standard things - pensions, standard UK savings etc.

I have engaged an advisor but at some £150 an hour already 2/3 hours a month will absorb all my disposable income and it seems some of these issues (particularly the Vanguard fund for 2013) are going to take much longer.

It is a shame that your adviser does not offer you a fixed fee as this would enable you to budget better.

The streamlined program is not risk-free because it is unclear what the IRS does with returns filed on this basis; it is not created under statute and it is not a contract because the IRS have not been writing accepting the submissions; and there is frequently no consideration. It is - for some people - the least worst option out there.