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American living abroad and not working for an American company - tax reporting and bank accounts
I'll add a bit to Paul's excellent write up. Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (form 2555): notice the earned there. It doesn't exclude capital gains, interest, dividends, and basically everything that is not salary. You pay US taxes on it from the first cent. Foreign tax credit - foreign tax credit (form 1116) doesn't reduce your US tax dollar for dollar (even though it may appear that it does from the generic explanations). By using this form you may end up accumulating unused credit while still paying double taxes at the same time. Happened to me. Thank Congress for the logical and reasonable US tax laws. New FATCA form 8938: as opposed to FBAR (that goes to the FinCEN in the Treasury), this one goes to the IRS. it contains very similar info, but the threshold requirements are different. You may have to file FBAR, but not these, or you may have to file both. Being an American citizen, some European banks will refuse to provide services to you. Again, thank Congress for FATCA. It requires foreign banks to enforce US tax regulations on US citizens, and banks that won't will get penalized in the US. Many banks refuse to provide services to Americans because of that because what IRS requires is illegal in most countries. Some countries (like UK and some other EU countries) have signed treaties with the US to resolve this, but many haven't. Currency conversion - as I commented to Paul, you convert the amounts when you receive them, which may have your fixed EUR salary be converted to different dollar amounts every time. You need to make sure you do it right. Pensions, savings, investments - if you're doing these in non-US instruments prepare to be penalized. US taxes foreign investments much more aggressively than domestic. If you're investing in indexes/mutual funds, or you're a principle in a corporation, or you create a pension account - you'll get hit by additional reporting requirements and tax. Tax treaties - the US has tax treaties with many EU countries, and equalization treaties with some. The tax treaties affect the standard tax treatment by the US and some of the "generic" info you got here may not apply because of a tax treaty, and some other rules may apply. Equalization treaties work similarly with regards to the Social Security. Bottom line, and I know Paul disagrees with me on this - talk with a US-licensed adviser in the country you're going to. It is very important for your tax adviser to know the relevant treaty (and not read it the first time when you call him), and to understand each and every financial instrument in your country. Missing piece of paper in your tax return can cost you thousands of dollars in penalties (not exaggerating, not filing form 3520 triggers a $10000 penalty, even if there's no tax) and additional taxes.