How should I report my RSUs in my tax return
Here's an article on it that might help: http://thefinancebuff.com/restricted-stock-units-rsu-sales-and.html One of the tricky things is that you probably have the value of the vested shares and withheld taxes already on your W-2. This confuses everyone including the IRS (they sent me one of those audits-by-mail one year, where the issue was they wanted to double-count stock compensation that was on both 1099-B and W-2; a quick letter explaining this and they were happy). The general idea is that when you first irrevocably own the stock (it vests) then that's income, because you're receiving something of value. So this goes on a W-2 and is taxed as income, not capital gains. Conceptually you've just spent however many dollars in income to buy stock, so that's your basis on the stock. For tax paid, if your employer withheld taxes, it should be included in your W-2. In that case you would not separately list it elsewhere. "Your employer should send you a statement with this information. If they didn't, you should still be able to find it through E*Trade. Navigate to: Trading & Portfolios>Portfolios. Select the stock plan account. Under ""Restricted Stock"", you should see a list of your grants. If you click on the grant in question, you should see a breakdown of how many shares were vested and released by date. It will also tell you the cost basis per share and the amount of taxes withheld. You calculate your cost basis by multiplying the number of released shares by the cost basis per share. You can ignore the ordinary income tax and taxes withheld since they will already have been included on your W2 earnings and withholdings. Really all you need to do is report the capital gain or loss from the cost basis (which if you sold right away will be rather small)."
I just scanned in a single sheet summary of my last two years tax returns. It is something our CPA does for us. How would I post it? Don't worry, I marked out all the personal information.    What is says is I paid over $50K in taxes in 2015. Last year we had one of our biggest contracts put on hold, so I only paid $20K.   I won't have this years figures, because we don't submit them to our CPA until the end of the year. However, this year, we just bought out two other owners at $1.2M, which makes me a 33% owner. The contract is getting restarted (knock on wood), which all together means my personal tax liability is going to be well over $100K.   My company is a commercial company, but we work with the government, and matter of fact some of the stuff we produce was designed and developed by the government (as is many of today's modern inventions - I think you would be surprised).   So lets tackle it one at a time. Pick one of those things that commercial does better than government.   P.s. Higher taxes doesn't mean higher for you, a lot of times it means higher for guys like me or way better than me (which I am perfectly fine with, and matter of fact would support). People who use infastructure more - like large corporations - should pay more for it... "I made an investing mistake many (eight?) years ago. Specifically, I invested a very large sum of money in a certain triple leveraged ETF (the asset has not yet been sold, but the value has decreased to maybe one 8th or 5th of the original amount). I thought the risk involved was the volatility--I didn't realize that due to the nature of the asset the value would be constantly decreasing towards zero! Anyhow, my question is what to do next?  I would advise you to sell it ASAP. You didn't mention what ETF it is, but chances are you will continue to lose money. The complicating factor is that I have since moved out of the United States and am living abroad (i.e. Japan). I am permanent resident of my host country, I have a steady salary that is paid by a company incorporated in my host country, and pay taxes to the host government. I file a tax return to the U.S. Government each year, but all my income is excluded so I do not pay any taxes. In this way, I do not think that I can write anything off on my U.S. tax return. Also, I have absolutely no idea if I would be able to write off any losses on my Japanese tax return (I've entrusted all the family tax issues to my wife). Would this be possible?  I can't answer this question but you seem to be looking for information on ""cross-border tax harvesting"". If Google doesn't yield useful results, I'd suggest you talk to an accountant who is familiar with the relevant tax codes. Are there any other available options (that would not involve having to tell my wife about the loss, which would be inevitable if I were to go the tax write-off route in Japan)? This is off topic but you should probably have an honest conversation with your wife regardless. If I continue to hold onto this asset the value will decrease lower and lower. Any suggestions as to what to do? See above: close your position ASAP For more information on the pitfalls of leveraged ETFs (FINRA) What happens if I hold longer than one trading day?  While there may be trading and hedging strategies that justify holding these investments longer than a day, buy-and-hold investors with an intermediate or long-term time horizon should carefully consider whether these ETFs are appropriate for their portfolio. As discussed above, because leveraged and inverse ETFs reset each day, their performance can quickly diverge from the performance of the underlying index or benchmark. In other words, it is possible that you could suffer significant losses even if the long-term performance of the index showed a gain." Is there a limit on how much I can send? Can I send $100K plus? No. Yes. What is the most appropriate way to send money - international wire?   Is there international-wire limit restrictions I need to be aware of? Yes. No. Is there any tax obligation should I be aware of when sending money   home? If you're a US tax resident (which, as a US citizen, you are), you should be aware of gift tax rules. You'll probably want to talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your state) and/or attorney, to understand the ramifications in full. If my family can return my money back in future, great, if not I   really don't care, but when (if) I get my money back, will I have to   pay taxes on bringing my own money back into US? No. But if you're giving it as a loan - you'll get paid interest which is taxable income to you. Is there anything else do I need to be aware of? The rules of the country which you're sending the money to. "Answers: 1: No, Sections 1291-1298 of the IRC were passed in the Reagan adminstration. 2: Not only can a foreign company like a chocolate company fall afoul of the definition of PFIC because of the ""asset test"", which you cite, but it can also be called a PFIC because of the ""income test"".  For example, I have shares in a development-stage Canadian biotech which is considered a PFIC because it has no income at all, except for a minor amount of bank interest on its working capital.  This company is by no means ""passive"" (it has run 31 clinical trials in over 1100 human research subjects, burning $250M of investor's money in the process) nor is it an ""investment company"", but the stupid IRS considers it to be a ""passive foreign investment company""!  The IRS looks at it and sees only the bank account, and assumes it is a foreign shell corporation set up to shield the bank interest from them. 3: Yes, a foreign mutual fund is EXACTLY what congress intended to be a PFIC when passed IRC 1291-1298.  (Biotechs, candy factories, ect got nailed as innocent bystanders.)  Note that if you hold a US mutual fund then every year you'll get a form 1099 in the mail.  The 1099 will report your share of the mutual fund's own income and capital gains, which you must report on your taxes.  (You can also have capital gains from selling your shares of the mutual fund, but that's a different thing.) Now suppose that there was no PFIC law.  Then the US investors in the mutual fund would do better if the mutual fund were in a foreign country, for two reasons: a) The fund would no longer distribute 1099's.  That means the shareholders wouldn't have to pay tax every year on their proportions of the fund's own income/gains.  The money that would have sooner gone to the IRS can sit around for years earning interest. b) The fund could return profits to shareholders exclusively through capital gains rather than dividends, thus ensuring that all of the investors' income on the fund would be taxed at <15%-20% rather than up to 39%.  The fund could do this by returning cash to shareholders exclusively through buybacks. However, the US mutual fund industry doesn't want to move the industry to Canada, and it only takes a few newspaper articles about a foreign loophole to make congress spring to action. 4) It depends.  If you have a PEDIGREED QEF election in place (as I do for my biotech shares) then form 8621 takes a few minutes by hand.  However, this requires both the company and the investor to fully cooperate with congress's vision for PFICs.  The company cooperates by providing a so-called ""PFIC annual information sheet"", which replaces the 1099 form for a US mutual fund.  The investor cooperates by having a ""QEF election"" in place for EACH AND EVERY TAX YEAR in which he held the stock and by reporting the numbers from the PFIC annual information sheet on his return.  (Note that the QEF election persists once made, until revoked.  There are subtleties here that I am glossing over, since ""deemed sale"" elections and other means may be used to modify a share's holding period to come into compliance.) Note that there is software coming out to handle PFICs, and that the software makers will already run their software to make your form 8621 for $75 or so.  I should also warn you that the blogs of tax accountants and tax lawyers all contradict each other on the basic issue of whether you can take capital losses on PFICs for which you have no form 8621 elections.  (See section 2.3 of my notes http://tinyurl.com/mh9vlnr for commentary on this mess.)  I do not know if the software people will tell you which elections are best made on form 8621, though, or advise you if it's time to simply dump your investment. The professional software is at 8621.com, and the individual 8621 preparation is at http://expattaxtools.com/?page_id=242. BTW, in case you're interested, I wrote up a very careful analysis of how to deal with the PFIC situation for the small biotech I invested in in certain cases. It is posted http://tinyurl.com/mh9vlnr.  (For tax reasons it was quite fortunate that the share price dipped to near an all-time low on Jan 1, 2015, making the (next) 2015 tax year ripe for a so-called ""deemed sale"" election.  This was only possible because the company provides the necessary ""PFIC annual information statements"", which your chocolate factory may or may not do.)" Such activity is normally referred to as bartering income. From the IRS site - You must include in gross income in the year of receipt the fair market value of goods or services received from bartering. Generally, you report this income on Form 1040, Schedule C (PDF), Profit or Loss from Business (Sole Proprietorship), or Form 1040, Schedule C-EZ (PDF), Net Profit from Business (Sole Proprietorship). If you failed to report this income, correct your return by filing a Form 1040X (PDF), Amended U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Refer to Topic 308 and Amended Returns for information on filing an amended return. If you've already used TurboTax on your 2015 taxes, you can use the numbers TurboTax gave you as your reasonable estimate.  Line 4 is your estimate of total tax liability for 2015. This would be line 63 of form 1040. This is Federal income tax only, not Social Security tax.  Line 5 is the total of tax payments you made last year. You should be able to read this off your W-2 forms, Box 2. It corresponds to line 74 on the 1040.  Line 6 is the difference between lines 4 and 5. You can't claim a refund on the extension, so if line 5 is more than line 4, enter 0. Otherwise, subtract line 5 from line 4, and enter it in line 6. This is the amount you should send in with the form to minimize any penalty due with your taxes later.  The TurboTax software can generate this extension form automatically, I believe.  Also, don't forget to give a copy of this extension form to your tax preparer. He will need to know the amount you sent in. is it possible to file that single form aside from the rest of my return? Turbotax will generate all the forms necessary to file your return. I recommend you  access these forms and file them manually. According to the IRS in order to report capital gains and losses you need to fill out Form 8949 and summarize them on Form 1040 D. Add these two forms to the stack that turbotax generates. Add the total capital gains to line 13 of the Form 1040 which turbotax generated, and adjust the totals on the form accordingly. The sale of shares on vesting convolutes matters. In a way similar to how reinvested dividends are taxed but the newly purchased fund shares' basis has to be increased, you need to be sure to have the correct per share cost basis. It's easy to confuse the total RSU purchase with the correct numbers, only what remained.  The vesting stock is a taxable event, ordinary income.  You then own the stock at that cost basis. A sale after that is long or short term and the profit is the to extent it exceeds that basis.  The fact that you got these shares in 2013 means you should have paid the tax then. And this is part two of the process. Of course the partial sale means a bit of math to calculate the basis of what remained.