Bogleheads.org

Thanks for the quick response. Instead of filing schedule E, don't I have to file schedule B instead? From the IRS: "Schedule E (Form 1040), Supplemental Income and Loss. Use Schedule E (Form 1040) to report income or loss from rental real estate, royalties, partnerships, S corporations, estat...

You won’t need TD F 90-22.1 since your bank balance is below $10K. You won’t need Form 2555 since you don’t have earned income. You’ll need Form 1040 and the enclosed Schedule E to report rental income, and form 1116 if you paid foreign tax on that income. As you are probably filing “Married, Filing...

No one mentioned Monte Carlo. If you’re on a budget this one is great. Great location, tram access, buffet, price. Use promo code xsocial.

InvestorNewb wrote:The way I look at it is we're back to the levels we were at in 2007.

Which were also at the same levels in 2000. About time for some serious asset appreciation.

I have a Rolex but I wear my Casio every day. It’s lightweight, radio controlled, solar powered, accurate, and if it’s misplaced only costs $200 to replace.

If you’re young then putting most of your money in Vanguard Total Stock Market (VTSMX) seems like a good idea to me. On the tax side, while I’m not necessarily recommending it, adding a bond fund probably wouldn’t lead to any USA tax liability after your deductions/exemptions/exclusions.

Using TurboTax, or some other software, you can try various scenarios--Using FEIE, FTC, Housing exclusion, with and without a tIRA or ROTH IRA.

Mr. Man,

Congratulations on your weight loss. But in my opinion a 36" waist is still overweight for a 5'8" man. Since you've come this far why don't you go all the way to slim and fit? Then go shopping.

You have to declare all income if you are over the minimum income filing requirement. I suggest you download the instructions for Form 1040 and read though it.

She should come forward and file back tax returns before the IRS comes to her. In that way they may allow the foreign earned income exclusion (FEIE) with an amnesty program. Those amnesty periods come and go. I don’t know the present status. I do know several people who have successfully filed back ...

I'm sure there are millions like me (maybe billions) who are underweight bonds are hoping for a bond bubble burst, even if it means a hit to net worth, to load up on some high-yielding debt. This is probably why interests are kept in check--everytime yields rise even a bit, buyers swoop in.

I’m with sscritic on including your home in net worth. I rent and I definitely don’t compare my net worth equally to home owners. As a matter of fact, I discount my net worth even more for having almost nothing besides liquid assets—no social security, pension, life insurance, annuity…hair (a little...

Was the email regarding brokerage or mutual funds 1099s? My most recent downloads of both were fine, whereas earlier downloads were messed up. I have received no email warning, but had exchanged multiple messages with my Flagship rep about the problems already. The 1099-DIV for mutual funds still j...

I got my email this morning. Seems a little late. I should have used my download from last week. Could have saved $1,000 and blamed VG if I got nabbed.

you couldn't deduct that much at 15k taxable income could you? I ask because I may be in that situation now and assumed roth was the way to go. Standard deduction/personal exemption, single, 2012 is $9,750. tIRA deduction, under 50yo, $5,000. Whether it would be better to defer the tax with a tIRA ...

Ok, just e-filed my US tax return with TurboTax. No real problem, except for one extremely stupid one: TurboTax insists on having a daytime phone where I can be reached in case there is a problem, but they will not accept something that does not look like a US phone number, and they will not let yo...

You misunderstood. I was talking about the case where you don't exclude your income with 2555. You can't fund an IRA of any kind if you exclude your foreign income. Any tax software will include personal exemptions and standard deduction. You should include all of your income, active and passive (10...

In summary: With a low income and low tax rate abroad, it is much better to use 2555. Yes, very concise, and true except when the income is very, very low. Consider an income of $15,000. Subtract personal exemption, standard deduction, $5,000 to a tIRA, a little foreign tax credit thrown in and vio...

I currently use Quicken Premier and need to upgrade so I don't lose transaction downloading in April. I do NOT use Quicken to track tax lots, compute capital gains, etc. so I was thinking that I might not need the considerably more expensive Premier version. But I noted that a feature of Premier is...

One thing to keep in mind. Unlike now, in 1981 30 year Treasuries were callable. Most if not all were called when interest rates went single digits. This is exactly what I remember. Someone here challenged me on that and I couldn't provide a persuasive reference. Do you have one? According to the S...

I Googled and found this: "Another common strategy is to rebalance only when an asset class drifts off target by a certain percentage. Financial author Larry Swedroe recommends the “5/25 rule,” which says you only need to rebalance when an asset class is off by an absolute 5%, or a relative 25%...

Just wanted to acknowledge that it was in fact plats and bpp who assisted me, the OP, in this matter. Thanks again to you guys. Cheers, marcos123. Glad to hear it worked out for you. Always nice to get that kind of feedback. Ditto. I'll try to e-file this year for the first time. It'll save me time...

Questions for Turbotax users: 1. Does Turbotax calculate estimated tax for the current year as well as do the 1040 return? 2. Does Turbotax handle foreign taxes paid as a tax credit or only as a deduction? (I tried to use it several years ago but it would only handle foreign tax as a deduction). 1....

TurboTax 2011 allowed me to e-file with a foreign address. But I backed down before sending because I wasn't sure how to pay the balance due. Over 2012 I found that paying estimated taxes with officialpayments.com easy and cheap ($3.95 with a Visa debit card) so I think I'll try e-filing this year a...

Substantially identical returns. I wonder if exchanging would be a wash sale.

Taking the FEIE or not looks like a toss-up. After deducting your exemption/standard deduction of $10,000 and $5,500 for a tIRA, if you manage your present holdings in a tax efficient manner, you’d end up with AGI of around $4,000, taxed at 10%. Is it worth it for the tax-deferred tIRA? I’m not sure...

I've never had a problem filing overseas with TaxAct or TurboTax. Entering foreign income has always been puzzling, though. Never tried either on a Japanese OS.

AVG is highly recommended on a computer talk radio show here by guys that have been in the business providing service to commercial accounts for 20 years. My sister was using the free version on her pc (based upon that) using XP and it filled her c drive (this happened a year or 2 after getting the...

How about: VGSIX VBMFX ?

End of Mainstream Support for Vista was April 10, 2012 and April 14, 2009 for XP. Mainstream support—Microsoft will offer mainstream support for a minimum of 5 years from the date of a product's general availability, or for 2 years after the successor product is released, whichever is longer. For e...

1,628.80

Certainly not an odd-ball question. Yes, you can fund a ROTH with your domestically earned income. The amount is self-assessed on Form 2555, and your formula looks OK, though I'd say adjusting for the lower salary while in the USA would be the most appropriate way.

Dividends on stocks or stocks funds are worthless IMO. They pay you a 2% dividend for example and the fund drops 2% the same day to compensate. IMO they paid you nothing. All they did was make you pay taxes. No. The fund NAV increased over the year in proportion to the dividend payout. If you held ...

Don't worry about it. Those gains may be gone in the next couple of days.

Looked like a bubble to me. The PER of the Nikkei was up around 100 compared to the current S&P PER of 15/16. And real estate was similarly overpriced.

Why don't you send the money to Vanguard or Etrade and find something with a higher return?

I assume she exempts all her income with the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE), in which case she cannot fund an IRA. She can open a taxable account somewhere (more easily if she has a USA address) and invest there. Remember with the standard deduction/personal exemption the first $9,500 or so ...

I understood the OP's query the same as Viking65, and agree with his ideas to maximize your rental income - deductions/exemptions gap. His ideas were ones I used living overseas for many years. The two years before moving back to the States I sold off cap gains to the extent of my gap without payin...

If it's like my bank, Wells Fargo, she can change her address online to her real address--the one overseas.

I did see that. It's too inconvenient a solution to do even once, let alone repeat after every time the printer is turned off. (I hardly ever print, and a ancient printer attached to the Vista machine is still working, so it's not actually a huge problem to wait a couple of months for a proper solu...

While still happy with Windows 8, I have experienced two setbacks I didn't expect. The less important: decided to upgrade an second machine that was running Windows 2000, by first installing Vista (for which I had a unused licence) then upgrading to 8. Turns out it can't upgrade to 8 as the process...

Since you are resident in NZ for an entire year you could choose either bona fide resident for 2007 and 2008 [if you meet the other requirements for residency] or the physical presence test. In either case you would get the full FEIE [$95,000] for 2007, and 2/3 of it for 2008.

Starting in 2006. A major change for expats with tax liability. From the IRS: "The Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-222) added a new section 911(f) to the Internal Revenue Code. In essence, an individual’s tax on any foreign earned income above the exclusion amou...

Jerilynn wrote:And if you don't know how to use the Excel function, Quicken Premier can do it.

Or the cheaper Quicken Delux.

I don’t see a big problem. Any US bank will accept an international dollar transfer for a nominal fee, about $10. And I’d guess any big Dubai bank can make a USD remittance. Sure there will be a fee and exchange costs but they are probably almost identical at every bank. If the fees are high he can ...

Although it's a frequently debated issue, I agree with the original poster that the value of a bond to an investor depends on what the investor plans to do with it, and to an investor whose plans are to hold an individual bond to maturity--or to hold a bond fund for a sufficiently long time--the fl...

Thank you for the responses. Just for clarity, here's the scenario I'm thinking of: I plan to retire holding $XX,XXX in Vanguard Intermediate Term Bond Fund (VBILX). I will neither buy nor sell any shares during retirement. I will collect all dividends to provide a retirement income stream. So, if ...

A good YouTube video guide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlGtH_28af0

My understanding is that only foreign income can be excluded. For any US derived income, they will still be taxed on a marginal rate of 28%. Seems unlikely. You'd have to have a huge US derived income to be taxed at a marginal tax rate of 28%. Will you have at least $85,650 in US derived taxable in...

NASDAQ still has not recovered its 2000 levels. Boy, howdy. And, last I checked, Japanese equity investors (in the Nikkei) were still substantially below 1990 (as in 22 years ago) levels. Stuff can go down and stay down for a long, long, time. I might lose a tad to inflation, but, as a retiree, &qu...