British Expatriate Network

Oh yes, it is that time of year again.

So, thought a thread would be a good idea of tips and ideas, especially for anyone new to a foreign tax system.

I feel as though in the 8 years we have been here we have used just about every method to get our taxes done. We were recommended on here to us TurboTax (I believe it was Beest who said it was worth using) and haven't looked back since. We love it. We have used H & R Block and would never use them again - useless and very expensive. Have used an accountant before and in the beginning he was very good but we lost confidence in his abilities and again it wasn't cheap. TurboTax again for the third year now )

So, what do you all use? What have you used in the past and found not worth the money etc. And do you have any tips.

Ben... are you filing single or jointly? I used turbo tax before I was married and really liked it. But after getting married and selling some property I used H&R because our taxes were a little more complicated.

This year I got turbo tax again and was trying to use it last night to file jointly. The thing is it doesn't seem to want to take both of our information. I chose "file jointly" and it asked for both our names, SS#, etc.. but after going thru the whole thing it only asked for the info from one of our W2 forms. I thought it would go thru the series of "interview" questions twice, once for me and once for him.

Maybe I'm being a dummy and missed something (I'm still on a few pain killers too here). I'll have to look it all over again and maybe give them a call if I can't figure it out. Just thought I would ask you since you just did yours and you might have an easy answer.

)
Clem

We file jointly. Always have done so I can't compare what it is like to file singly. According to hubby it should either ask if you have more W2's or there is an 'add' button. He can't remember whether it goes all the way through with just one person first and then goes onto the other person or not. When he starts it this weekend (we don't have everything through yet so we can only do a little of ours so far) he will see what happens and let you know, if of course you haven't had chance to figure it out by then )

We don't do turbo tax -we file jointly and do them ourselves. The first couple of years, we had an accountant as part of our relo deal, then we just use the old returns for guidance. We don't have all our stuff yet either.

We 2 had the relo tax for the first year here
Now we file together with Trbo Tax, so esy and uick and with costco's coupon it cost us $25 this year :lol:
Just typing in names and we had a $60 rebate :mrgreen:

We use H&R Block. Not that expensive in the past as we were both filing, separately for my business. It always worked in our favor, and now we will be filing jointly, I'll let you know if this proves expensive.

We use h,r block internet *they just sent us this years disc about 2 weeks ago * most of our tax stuff is in and it will be done during the next few weeks (my wife has it down to a art ) we have had a rebate for the last 5 years ,expect the same for 2006

Golden rule ....if you are due a rebate file as early as possibe, if you owe leave till the last day .

You expect to live that long :lol:

maybe not but give me 3 days and ill return .

if a poor carpenter form nazarath can do that it should,nt be much of a fete for me :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Very wise Monster, this is the commonsense approach for the average uncomplicated return.

Wether you do Block or an accountant you must first collect all your W2's and interest,dividend and other income.Summarize all the data then enter it on a tax form. Why not do it all yourself?

The things that have caused me a bit of a problem is 1)Filing status: make sure (if married) to check off the correct box or they will tax you as a single person and you will get a big tax bill.Lots of aggro to remedy.

Watch out for the last line(69 I think?(estimated tax penalty).

Then Schedule B, Interest and ordinary dividends, Part 111: Foreign Accounts and Trusts.

I have done all my Tax Forms since year one in Canada.

I do mine manually, the major part is collecting and organising the information.

If you are getting a rebate, you are doing something wrong, you've made an interest free loan to the government. Reduce your withholding, as much as is legal and won't draw penalties, and put the difference in a savings account. After you pay what you owe, in April, you'll end up with more cash to spend. In effect, you borrow from the government, interest free, put it in the bank and earn interest on it.

The code does something nice for retirees but it doesn't always look nice. Roughly, if half your social security retirement benefit, pus your other income is $25,000 or less, the social security benefit is not taxed. This is very nice, but assume you start at exactly, $25K, and the next year your income increases, you pay tax on the additional income and on half that amount from the soc. sec. pension. If your income goes up by $1,000 and your marginal tax rate is 15%, you pay 15% of the $1,000 plus 15% of $500 of the pension. Since income only increased by $1,000, the effective tax rate looks like 22 1/2%. They can tax up to 85% of the soc.sec. pension. Of course, after income grows a bit more, you go into the 25% marginal rate, looking like 37 1/2%. These rates and amounts are for single people.

Some people, with AGI of $52,000 or less, may be able to 'Free File'

I went from here to my email and found this federal is free but you pay $12.50 for state tax filing

I haven't checked it out.

We used an accountant for two years whilst we were there but on both occasions he missed things my wife spotted quite clearly. She did them from that point on. Now we're here she files as well.

My job here also involves making sure our clients get their taxes paid properly. Tho workign with the inland Revenue is akin to repeatedly smahing your head against a wall.

Clem I think you might have clicked "filing separately" by mistake. It sounds like the scenario I was in, as I was trying out both joint and separately to see if there was a difference.

$1200 tax bill this year... we screwed something up rotten last year.

Nice to see you back East 17, how've you been?

(sorry to go off topic, well, only a bit, just nosey lol )