Help filing for first time from UK

I've just realised I need to file every year (for some reason I thought every 3 years was the expectation) and I've obviously missed the deadline for filing for 2015. I earn under the foreign income exclusion amount and have no additional income sources in either country, nor do I have any accounts over 10k.

As my husband is a uk citizen I know my filing status would be married filing separately, but I am totally lost beyond that point. Can I file myself? Do I need to hire someone (i would hope I don't need to hire someone when I went even owe any tax)? How quickly can I get this done?

Any advice is appreciated.

Unless your situation is complicated, no need to hire anyone. You can either take the FEIE to exclude your UK income, or take a FTC (Foreign Tax Credit) for tax paid to the UK to offset any tax that would be due in the US. If you want to make it (slightly) easier, get Turbo Tax.

If you have specific questions, post and someone will likely come along to assist. Yes you do file MFS, but you are entitled to claim an exemption for your spouse (which lowers your US tax liability, if any). That requires getting an ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) for your spouse. Despite the name, this does NOT mean your spouse is or will be a taxpayer.

Hi Vadio, do you know where my husband can get his ITIN number in England?

Unless your situation is complicated, no need to hire anyone. You can either take the FEIE to exclude your UK income, or take a FTC (Foreign Tax Credit) for tax paid to the UK to offset any tax that would be due in the US. If you want to make it (slightly) easier, get Turbo Tax.

If you have specific questions, post and someone will likely come along to assist. Yes you do file MFS, but you are entitled to claim an exemption for your spouse (which lowers your US tax liability, if any). That requires getting an ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) for your spouse. Despite the name, this does NOT mean your spouse is or will be a taxpayer.

Hi Vadio, do you know where my husband can get his ITIN number in England?

Start here, which explains the process:

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/obtaining-an-itin-from-abroad

Also read this: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/taxpayer-identification-numbers-tin - which explains why you need one to claim the spouse exemption. You my not need that exemption now, but circumstances change, and it may benefit you in the future.

To obtain an ITIN one would need to either send an original UK (or other non-US) passport to the IRS ITIN Unit or - alternatively - use an IRS Certified Acceptance Agent; such as www.americantaxreturns.co.uk.

 

My overall caution to everyone is think before you file! Ask yourself if electing to claim the foreign earned income exclusion by filing IRS Form 2555 is going to produce the optimum result?

Many folks may have non-excluded income such as currently US taxable pension contributions from a non-US employer and want to use foreign tax credits to reduce US tax payable on these kinds of income. Equally, anyone with a child may wish to maximise their potential child tax credit refund (a very handy amount of up to $1,000 per child) by not claiming the foreign earned income exclusion. Most importantly for many, as none of us can predict family circumstances, US and non-US tax and exchange rates for all the next 10 years, it is typically prudent to maximise excess foreign tax credit carryovers to future tax years. Because of this uncertainty over each of the next 10 years; it is possible that electing to claim the foreign earned income exclusion - and therefore not optimising foreign tax credit carryovers - could cost real money in any of the next 10 US tax years. (US law allows excess foreign tax credits to carry forward for up to 10 years.)