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    U.S. Taxes for Worldly Americans: The Traveling Expat's Guide to Living, Working, and Staying Tax Compliant Abroad (Updated for 2024)
    U.S. Taxes for Worldly Americans: The Traveling Expat's Guide to Living, Working, and Staying Tax Compliant Abroad (Updated for 2024)
    U.S. Taxes for Worldly Americans: The Traveling Expat's Guide to Living, Working, and Staying Tax Compliant Abroad (Updated for 2024)
    Ebook165 pages1 hour

    U.S. Taxes for Worldly Americans: The Traveling Expat's Guide to Living, Working, and Staying Tax Compliant Abroad (Updated for 2024)

    By Olivier Wagner

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    About this ebook

    Introducing the 2024 Edition of the Amazon Expat Tax Bestseller

    Are you a U.S. citizen residing abroad? Living beyond American borders doesn't exempt you from the long arm of the IRS. The United States taxes its citizens on worldwide income, no matter where they roam. But fear not! Navigating the complexities of expat taxation just got easier with this updated guide.

    In U.S. Taxes for Worldly Americans, Olivier Wagner, a seasoned Certified Public Accountant, expat, and global traveler, unveils a treasure trove of strategies to help you legally minimize your tax burden while embracing a global lifestyle. Whether you're considering the life of a digital nomad or contemplating expatriation, this book equips you with the knowledge to safeguard your income and assets from undue taxation and penalties.

    Discover:

    Proven tactics for leveraging citizenship, residency, banking, incorporation, and physical presence in foreign countries to slash your U.S. tax liability to zero.

    Expert insights into international tax laws and regulations, meticulously updated for the 2023 tax year.

    Step-by-step guidance on navigating the Forms and Schedules necessary for offshore tax filing.

    Special deductions, credits, and exemptions available to expats, demystified for your benefit.

    The tax implications of residency or citizenship in foreign jurisdictions, including how they can work to your advantage.

    Essential considerations for expat families, including spouses and children of varying nationalities.

    Practical advice for relocating, living, and working tax-efficiently across the globe.

    Definitive strategies for getting a second passport and renouncing U.S. citizenship and bidding farewell to IRS obligations forever.


    Don't let tax uncertainty dampen your global lifestyle. Arm yourself with the knowledge and confidence to navigate the intricacies of U.S. taxation for expats.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIdentity Publications
    Release dateAug 9, 2018
    ISBN9781386134688
    U.S. Taxes for Worldly Americans: The Traveling Expat's Guide to Living, Working, and Staying Tax Compliant Abroad (Updated for 2024)
    Author

    Olivier Wagner

    Certified Public Accountant, U.S. immigrant, expat, and perpetual traveler Olivier Wagner preaches the philosophy of being a worldly American. He uses his expertise to show you how to use 100% legal strategies (beyond traditionally maligned "tax havens") to keep your income and assets safe from the IRS. Before obtaining my U.S. citizenship and traveling all over the world, he was born and raised in France. His experience learning the intricacies of the U.S. immigration process combined with his desire to travel freely lead me to specialize in taxes for Americans living and working abroad. He helps Americans Abroad file their taxes and devise strategies that make sense for their lifestyle. These strategies encompass all aspects of registering an offshore business, opening a bank account abroad, and planning out new residencies and citizenships. He is operating the accounting firm 1040 Abroad. 1040 Abroad exists to help you make sense of an incredibly large world of possibilities. Find out more by visiting www.1040abroad.com

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      Book preview

      U.S. Taxes for Worldly Americans - Olivier Wagner

      PREFACE

      Are you a citizen of the United States who lives abroad? You might be an American who’s moved abroad but hasn’t given up their original citizenship. Maybe you were born in the U.S. but have no real ties to it. Such accidental Americans are more common than you might think, and many of them don’t even realize they are obligated to pay U.S. taxes.

      Maybe you’ve recently moved from the United States and aren’t sure how this affects your filing requirements. Have you established residency in another country? Do you still derive income from the U.S. or another country? All of these factors will change your tax situation.

      You could be a self-employed digital nomad who works from several different countries, moving wherever you want at your leisure. Despite such an unconventional way of making a living, you might still owe taxes to the U.S. If you don’t file correctly, you could miss out on important legal opportunities to reduce your tax burden. Or worse, things could end up with the government revoking your passport and coming after you for years of back taxes that you never knew you owed.

      You may already know that the U.S. is one of only two countries in the world that taxes its people based on their citizenship and not on where they live or where their money comes from. If you make more than $13,850 per year (as of the 2023 tax year) and are a U.S. Citizen, you still must file a return each year. Even if you can arrange things so that you legally owe nothing, you must still file. This can be problematic for anyone who has not filed taxes in a long time–or ever. How do you ensure Uncle Sam gets his due without suffering enormous penalties as you struggle to get compliant?

      You may have been told that you don’t owe any U.S. taxes on money made overseas. This is true up to a certain amount, but only if you know how to take advantage of the proper avenues. Exclusions can cover the first $120,000 of earned income (as of 2023¹), wages and self-employment income. But to claim this exclusion, you must let the IRS know what’s going on through the regular filing of your tax return. Combined with certain other tests and exemptions, it is possible for most people who work abroad to keep their taxes at $0 legally.

      How do you know if this is the right situation for you? To find out, you’ll first have to answer many other questions. How many days do you spend abroad each year? Do you have residency, bank accounts, or corporations in any other jurisdiction? How much money do you make as an individual or company entity? There is no one easy answer for every American living abroad. If you don’t understand the full spectrum of possibilities, you could end up paying a lot more than is necessary. Or worse still, you could be considered tax non-compliant. You may be able to evade negative repercussions for a while, but sooner or later, you will have to face the music.

      My work with 1040 Abroad (and my goal in writing this book) has not been to scare people into taking action. On the contrary, I wish to empower people to live fuller lives and feel more confident in their actions by taking control of their unique tax situations. By reading the information here, you should better grasp how the U.S. tax system uniquely affects Americans abroad. You should be one step closer to getting your desired freedom of mind.

      If you like what you’ve read here, I encourage you to check out the wealth of articles on the 1040 Abroad blog for more valuable information like this. If you have any questions about what you’ve read here or want me to help you by coming up with a plan on how to handle your U.S. taxes as an overseas American, I encourage you to email me at owagner​@1040​abroad.​com.

      Yours in freedom,

      Olivier Wagner

      ¹ The housing exclusion can further increase this amount.

      INTRODUCTION

      I grew up in France, near Strasbourg, but I always had dreams of living around the world. When I went to the U.S. in 2004, I studied the American tax system in Louisiana before moving to New York to work in corporate finance. In 2005, I finally received my U.S. green card and became a U.S. citizen in 2009. I had successfully climbed through the hurdles that so many immigrants from all over the world strive to overcome, bringing into my life all of the trials and benefits that a U.S. passport brings to its owner. I still retained my original French citizenship as well, so I was now a dual citizen of two of the most powerful and free-to-travel nations on Earth.

      With my new American wife, I stayed at my job in New York for five more years, until wanderlust came crawling back to me in 2011. That was when we decided to move to Canada, where I experienced life for the first time, not just as an American citizen but an American expatriate living abroad.

      At this point in my life, the French government saw me as French, the American government saw me as American, and the Canadian government saw me as a Canadian resident. I was already living a very diversified life, mixing and merging international cultures and bureaucratic rules in ways that were completely unknown to me before. All that would seem small, though, in comparison to the major lifestyle overhaul I would experience just four years later when I decided to pack my bags and transition to a life of full-time nomadism around the world.

      For the last few years now, I’ve embraced a life of much greater motion. I travel wherever my two passports will allow me whenever I want to. I’ve experienced life as an American and French expatriate in dozens of countries on almost every continent.

      While I know I am not an American in the same way as someone who grew up in the U.S. is, as I didn’t move there until I was an adult, I still think of myself as an American. In some ways, I have experienced more aspects of being American than most natural-born citizens. I’ve been a tourist, foreign resident, immigrant citizen, and now expatriate living and working abroad. I’ve also seen all sides of the spectrum: the good, the bad, and the many regulations it all entails. This is what ultimately leads me to the path of helping other Americans like myself who are in unconventional tax situations due to their worldwide lifestyles or identities.

      Americans requiring special attention for their taxes can fall into three primary categories–expatriates, perpetual travelers, and accidental Americans.

      EXPATRIATES

      Most people think of expatriates when they picture an American who has left their home country. They live permanently or semi-permanently outside the U.S. in another country but have retained their American citizenship. They could be permanently retired or working long-term in a regular job in their new location. Either way, they aren’t deriving any income from the U.S. itself. Expats pay taxes in the foreign country where they live, allowing them to use a Foreign Tax Credit when filing their returns home. Because they already pay taxes in a foreign country, it is unlikely they will have to pay tax at all in the U.S. (but only if they file everything correctly).

      PERPETUAL TRAVELERS

      A true nomad is somebody who travels from place to place constantly, rarely staying in one place for more than a few weeks or months. Because of this transient lifestyle, they never establish enough ties to any country to become a taxpayer there. They travel on tourist visas or, at most, student visas. Most of them have either a nest egg of savings, are retired, or run an online business from wherever they go. This is a desirable path because it is the only way that Americans can ensure they never have to pay taxes because they will never have to file a return anywhere else. These people still must file in America, however, even if they never set foot there during the year, and I help them figure out how to set it all up to legally minimize their obligation.

      ACCIDENTAL AMERICANS

      Accidental Americans are people who, for most of their lives, may not even realize they are, in fact, technically American citizens. They were usually born in the U.S. but moved somewhere else when they were young. Because America grants everyone born on its soil citizenship by default, these people have been carrying this status with them for years and are blissfully unaware of the tax consequences it carries. This is a major legal and financial risk that a lot of people are subject to, but they are not even aware of the danger. People who suspect they could fall into this category should talk to experts who can help them figure out their situation and what to do about their taxes.

      I help these kinds of people because most U.S. tax preparers are only familiar with the tax laws for people who live and work domestically. It’s

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