just what the title states, i am currently overseas and want to ensure all my ducks are line up for taxes this year,  dont want any surprises

Not a CPA. Have been down this road before.
If planning on not paying taxes...Do you meet the test ?

Out of the Country for ? In the past. It was 16 months continus..however I think it has changed and a few days here and there are ok..? Specific number of day per year.
Can not have substantial accets in the US ? Mostly meaning.. where do you live and can you prove it.
Where is your car ? Where do you get your mail ? Where is the place you sleep 300 days a year ? Are you paid in a foreign country ?
Example: a generalization..you live out of the Country 200 days a year. your paycheck is wired into a US bank and you maintain a house here and your personal mail goes to your US house, maintain car in US.
You would most likely be responsible for US Income Tax. You could however write off most or all expenditures incurred with the cost of living outside the us where you actually perform the work.
It would also depend on line of work.
Spend the money and consult with Tax Attorney for 30 minutes. It is one of those pay me now pay more later things.

Foreign Earned Income Exclusion:  the requirements themselves are pretty simple; whether you meet them in the eyes of the IRS is not simple.

You have two options:  bona fide resident (which means you are actually a resident of a foreign country, with an address, bills, pay foreign taxes, etc.) and don't plan on returning to the states for the long term, or physical presence.  If you have basically any connection to the U.S., physical presence is all you qualify for.

Physical presence = 330 full (partial days [i.e. the days you leave and arrive the U.S.] don't count) days outside of the country not including travel days nor days over international waters; IOW, 330 full days in a foreign country.

I guess there's also a third option:  you don't qualify for either and file normally which is fairly common since the two requirements are fairly difficult to legitimately meet.

Most tax preparers will not allow you to file bona fide resident simply because it is so hard to prove...unless you actually are a resident of a foreign country (e.g. live in Thailand and work in Saudi, etc.).

If you meet the requirements of either test, you don't have to pay taxes on $102,100 of your income; that amount is included in your total income when determining your tax bracket.

Simple?  Well, if you said yes, there's also the Foreign Housing Exclusion and/or Deduction which depends on where you are living (high or low cost area per the IRS and you must compute a daily rate and etc.) but is generally limited to 16% of the FEIE or $16,336...and it get's worse from there.

As stated in first post:  you should probably have a tax professional (hopefully one who specializes in expat returns) prepare your taxes and the easiest thing is to ask him/her how they are going to do it.

And since you said you are already working overseas, whether you are able to meet either of the residency tests prior to filing your taxes depends on when you started working; if you don't have enough time out of the country by the filing deadline (or and extension), then you are out of luck this year but will have set yourself up for next year's filing.

typed out a reply but it never apeared. odd.

anyway,  I found a couple firms that handle expat taxes so i will be contracting one of them to handle the matter.

in short my question is regard the first 6 months of the year where i worked and paid taxes stateside, but resided in kuwait for the second half of the year, with the intent to stay over here for a few years.

thanks for the info

I suspected that might be the case.

Since you won't meet the 330 days by April of '18 but may by OCT '18, you could get an extension and then prorate the exclusion for the ½ of the year you were in Kuwait (i.e. ~50% of the $102,100).

Yeah sounds about right since the last time I was over here.

The firm I found seems solid, 400 to 600 based on complexity.

Much more comfortable than the TCN who has his CPA and charges everybody 25KD lol.

the income made the first part of the year in the states is gonna be taxed. no amount of where you are will change that. as stated, you can pro-rate the oconus earnings. probably gonna have to file next year as normal then do an amended return when you meet the 330 to get the refund.

Go ahead and have them withhold taxes from your check for now. I hate giving free loans but its worth it.  too many people lost their 330 because of a funeral or other family emergency and had to pay huge bills. I knew a woman while i was in Afghanistan who had a flight cancelled due to weather. She spent an extra three ish days in a hotel waiting on a re-scheduled flight. It cost her almost $20,000 because of the exemption lost.

Read irs publication 54.


My cpa charges around $450 a year to do mine so your prices are pretty standard there.