Larry's 2012 Tax Guide For U.S. Expats & Green Card Holders - In User-Friendly English!. Laurence E. 'Larry'

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      •Dividends - both qualified and not qualified (a lower tax rate for the latter)

      •State tax refunds- this only applies if you itemized your deductions last year

      •Alimony received

      •Self-employment, sole-proprietorship business income or loss

      •Capital gains or losses (maximum loss: $US3,000)

      •Other gains (the capital gain laws are complicated!)

      •IRA distributions

      •Taxable portion of pensions or annuities

      •Rental real estate (or loss), royalties and a whole slew of K-1 reporting

      •Farm income or loss

      •Social security benefits

      •Other income (but losses, too: this is where you offset your foreign earned income with your foreign income exclusions.)

      That's it! All of the above is added up to become your total income, which, if you have any, you have got to report it. If you don't have any, you don't have to report it (unless your gross income is over $US9,500, as a single person, for 2011).

      Then there are various adjustments you can use to further reduce total income to Adjusted Gross Income from which you either itemize your deductions or take a standard deduction. Frankly, most expats take the standard deduction, accounting for all of their excludable housing expenses on the form 2555 they file. The Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, Form 2555, is ONLY applicable to expats, but that's why you are reading this, in the first place! - read on for further details...and remember, both Form 2555 and the ‘lite’ edition of this form, Form 2555EZ are both contained within the appendix of this book - along with their instructions.

      And now we come to the classifications under which you fall for tax reporting purposes. There are four categories into which you basically ‘fit’ and these categories each determine the amount of your standard deduction.

      •MFJ or QW Married Filing Jointly or Qualified Widow (hopefully, you do not come under the Qualifying Widow/Widower category but if you do, then there are tax benefits) will be able to take an additional deduction amounting to $US11,600 from your income in order to arrive at your taxable income.

      •Single Not married? This is your category. Yes, you can still have dependents, but you would generally be filing as a single taxpayer, entitled to a $US5,800 standard deduction, half the amount that a married couple gets.

      •MFS Married Filing Separately If your spouse is not a citizen of the U.S., then you have an interesting option vis a vis reporting responsibilities - especially if you own little but your spouse is ‘loaded’. If you have a non-U.S. citizen spouse with substantial assets and income, he or she simply might not want to report to the IRS. Frankly, there are many expats or green card holders who have income producing assets and have placed those assets in spousal name to ‘escape’ reporting. Alarmed at putting it all in your spouse's name? Don't be: even the things I owned were no longer mine, so long ago in an equal division of property California divorce where equal division meant that my ex got all the assets while I got all the liabilities. If you file MFS, you've got a $US5,800 standard deduction for 2011.

      •HOH Head of Household If you have dependents living with you and are not married, there are some tax advantages and some trade-offs in filing as HOH. True, you are going to get an $US8,500 standard deduction for 2011 but in the process, you will lose the exemption for the person qualifying you to take HOH. Speak to your tax advisor about which is better for you: either HOH or MFS, if you have dependents.

      O.K. After you've taken your standard (or itemized deductions if you have a large enough amount to itemize and it is to your advantage) deduction, then you can take a personal exemption for you and an exemption, as well, for all those who qualify as your dependents for whom you list both names, relationship and either Tax Identification Number - TIN - or Social Security Number - SSN. If you do not have that number available and you are liable for taxes, the IRS will not allow you the exemption without getting that number....so you'd better apply for one! Go to the IRS site and download Form W-7 and the instructions for that form – you’re going to have to file this form and commensurate back up papers, along with your tax return for the year to a ‘special’ address in Philadelphia, PA to get that TIN. A special word of advice: The IRS loses things – make sure you have copies of everything that you file when you apply for the TIN – you might have to file again…and again…and again. Alas, the tax bureaucracy in the U.S. is not what it might have previously been – papers filed get lost far more frequently than the IRS will ever willingly admit!

      Aha! We've now arrived at your taxable income........now you have to compare this with what your Alternative Minimum Tax - AMT - might be and you’re going to have to pay the higher amount.

      For an explanation of what the Alternative Minimum Tax is, you have to go to my 2011 book. I wrote a gem of an explanation for which I guarantee you this: As soon as you read it, you will understand what the AMT is....yet a week later, you'll have to re-read this, to remember what it is.....Sadly, the AMT is a tax that simply defies memory retention!

      Regardless, from the this point on, there are various and sundry credits to which you might be eligible for, which will reduce your tax bill - if you owe any taxes.....and if you are a self-employed sole proprietor, reporting your income and expenses on a Schedule C, even though you may be eligible for the foreign earned income exclusion, you are going to be liable for Social Security and Medicare taxes which, for the 2011 tax year, will equal 15.3 percent of your taxable Schedule C income now reduced, because of President Obama’s payroll tax deduction which ran through 2011 and now, at least will go through 2 months of 2012 and, most likely, the balance of 2012, as well. Still that social security tax obligation for the self-employed is frequently a very rude awakening for some!

      And now, for the very first time - at least as far as I know - your expat 2012 U.S. tax calendar:

      1 January 2012 the tax year begins for individuals who are on a calendar year (come on, now - we're all calendar year taxpayers, whether we like it or not!). The 'Entire taxable year' Begins on January 1 (which falls on a Sunday in 2012). You are on a ‘cash basis’ for tax purposes – if you receive any income in the calendar year, you’ll have to include it during that year. If you ‘earned’ income that you did not receive until the next year (payments that should have been made to you in 2011 that you did not actually receive until some time during 2012?), then don’t worry about that income – it’ll be part of your 2012 taxable income – unless you receive a Form 1099 which includes that income…..

      16 January 2012 (because the 15^th falls on a Sunday) This date is the deadline for final payment of estimated federal income taxes for the last voucher of the 2011 1040ES.

      31 January 2012 You can 'technically' avoid that 15 January deadline for payment of estimated taxes if you actually file your final tax return and pay final taxes by 31 January. How you are going to do this, though, when the likelihood that all of the forms you are going to need to file correctly, will simply not have been issued by this date?

      15 April 2012 Ah, you've all heard of this day - it is tax day, across the land, except for Massachusetts, where they run the Boston Marathon as part of their Patriot's Day holiday, entitling you to file one day late. ACTUALLY, BECAUSE IT IS A WEEKEND, FOR THIS YEAR, ONLY, YOU’VE GOT A REPRIEVE UNTIL 17 APRIL!

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