so are you forgoing the FEIE then?

sydtpuvqrha no, but not 100% of my income is excluded by feie. most is but i want to shove every dollar that isn't into a tax advantaged account 🙂

that makes sense. basically if the limit deducitoin for FEIE is 100k, and you make $120k, then put the 20k into a tax advantaged acccount, and claim FEIE on the 100k. right?

That's the idea

that’s a very important clarification. thanks so much!

A good accountant should point that out to you

if you were in the US for 3-4 months are you sure that you qualified for the FEIE? or were you out for 330 before and 330 after?

it’s one of those dealio where i wasn’t home for a long time, and then came back toward the end of the year and stayed a few months into the next year

Sammich homestay... I've had some clients do that

so, i still qualifed for FEIE , and just had to make sure that when i restart, that i stay out for the correct amount of time (aka, don’t come back too early)

gotcha. so you bookended it with 330 days out

yes

just wanted to make sure you weren't going to get a nasty surprise one day. 🙂

i’m super paranoid about that… i always make sure that i’m on the conservative side of counting days

I tell my clients to plan for 30 days in the US... I've seen a few FEIEs get busted by a delayed flight or family emergency

or if i need to enter the schengen zone due to some emergency or business related travels

it gives you 5-6 days buffer. enough to cover some filght issue

what gives a 5-6 day buffer?

Haha, yeah... one was a flight from Dallas to CDMX... i told her she should have rented a car and driven across the border

only planning to spend 30 days in instead of 35 or 36...

oh yeah. exactly. i always treat my trips home as 30, not 35 and not 36.

i have a friend who is based in asia so they always do the long haul from canada so their feie starts/ends there and then the short hop in/out of the US is same day.

sbwakaigbux income earned while in the US also doesn't get excluded, that's probably more relevant to most people here than earnings above the ~$106k cut off

ymqptaaw unless it's a corporation and you personally earn only when you're outside of US

yeah, advice above is not for people running established business entities and paying themselves as an employee etc

I'm just wondering, if establising an LLC is worse in any way than solo 1099?

An LLC has nothing to do with taxes. It’s specifically a business designation

You can contribute to your Roth for 2019 until April

Hmm interesting. I’m set up as an LLC. Friend of mine said that SCorp has tax benefits over LLC. Any of this sound right?

The S-Corp has some benefits, but the FEIE complicates that

The main benefit of an S-Corporation is being able to reduce the 15.3% sales tax by splitting the income of the business between salary and dividend.

That said, dividends are not considered earned income, and therefore cannot be claimed as FEIE income.

Yea, I feel bad asking a bunch of questions in here all the time. Anyone you’d recommend speaking too?

Only if you already have an existing Roth set up. The deadline for a establishing a Roth is the end of the prior calendar year.

hm though my tax guy did tell me last year that i could "set up a solo 401k and contribute to the roth".. maybe there's a different rule for roth vs trad contributions? i'll ask said tax guy to clarify but i'm assuming lvksujjqsiiynvm is right

Oh I may be wrong. I missed my contributions one year because of the end of calendar year deadline.

i haven't found anything on google saying differently, but i'm going to wait until it matters (i have the account actually approved/set up and have tax docs) before bugging my guy about it haha

Mark the Tax Quark

There’s also such a thing as a solo Roth 401k

yeah that's what i was referring to

(Diesen)

.

same here, 30

Mark is great. I also run a tax biz, happy to chat

So what's the point of this, if you are still doing FEIE? is it about the amount above the allowance?

IANACPA, but from what I take from this:
when all income is excluded under FEIE, Traditional 401(k) probably doesn’t make sense. Roth 401(k) is not disallowed, but certainly could be in the future

Hi. I didn’t know where to ask this question so I thought this group would be the one with the most Americans. flag-us :eagle:

Do any of you use a Virtual Mailbox? A service that receives your mail, scans your mail, and forwards important documents to an address (i.e. relative’s home)?

Out of all the ones I evaluated US Global Mail seemed like the best features vs price point. Any thoughts or suggestions?
(link omitted due to nomad list slack restrictions 😅 )

I use my mom's address but I also have the free USPS mail scanning thing set up, where I get a daily email with scans of all the mail being sent to that address... it's still only the outside of the envelope but then if it looks important I can ask her to open it for me. Obvs that only works if you have a friend or family member willing to receive your mail though; I'm lucky on that front

i think a few people use them. i use my mom because aside from tax and investing stuff i really don't get mail. biggest thing with a mail service is don't use one in california.

I’ve used Traveling Mailbox for the past six months and it’s worked out fine for me. No issues, nothing exceptional, just gets the job done.

i'm curious, do they shred your mail you don't want? i've been thinking of switching from my mom's house because i get a lot of prospectus crap in the mail. it would be nice for her to not have to deal with that.

Yes, they do, U03K95VPN. I just switched to TravelingMailbox for the bulk of my mail and it’s nice. I still have the occasional super important thing mailed to my mom, but mostly it goes to my mailbox. Bonus, for a few bucks, they’ll stamp “for deposit only” on checks and forward them to my bank. It’s annoying to have to deal with checks but they happen sometimes.

My hack for checks… I have them scan them and then I take a picture of the scan on my laptop (and use Preview to “sign” the back)… has worked well for me so far, although almost certainly not what the banks want you to be doing.

We’re on TravelingMailbox too. Very reliable service. They will consolidate items and ship internationally if you need.

omg you just solved my life, ty

(or at least the part of my life where I get a random check every few months and don't know how to deal with it... but still)

Haha yay!

This works for me as well (with Capital One)

I was on earthclassmail, but recently switched to Virtual Post Mail and it’s far better!

Thank you all for the helpful suggestions :slightly_smiling_face:
I’ll weigh the tradeoffs of the usps preview + parents address mule vs. mail service and make a decision.

I've been no using traveling mailbox for the past 6 months and it's been fine. Couple days around the holidays where they were slow, but they put an alert in their website and caught up over a weekend. They can also do faxes for those insane occasions where you need them, and they can send outbound checks and letters.

oh interesting, definitely seemed like there was a delay on my mail but never really thought about it

+1 on this for Fidelity, Schwab.

I also use traveling mailbox. I use the real address in NC. They’re really good. My other mailbox actually forwards a ups mailer containing all my other mail to travelling mailbox and then it gets opened and the mail inside the mail gets scanned. They seem to be able to handle anything

I’ve done this before with chase

I use a mailbox service that I found when living in Seattle and they are awesome -totally worth it. They cash checks I get to my bank account, and if I ever actually need the item, they can mail it to me

I have used Virtual Post Mail since 2015. They also handle any checks that come in. They are noted as a commercial address though so you can’t use the address when applying for a credit card.

pncxvvlrurggob can you shed a little light on the ‘not in california’ caveat? prayskin-tone-5

california does not recognize FEIE. so they WILL try to tax you if you have a presence there, even if it's just a mail service. and if you lived there before you have to be very strict about severing all ties if you don't want to pay state taxes.

oh ho hooo okay, thanks for the heads-up

Fun fact the line in Hotel California by The Eagles “You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave” is a reference to California taxes.

I’m going through this right now. Will be leaving California and plan to establish residence in Arizona (originally from there) before I become nomadic. I own a condo here though and not sure if I will be selling it or renting it out. Does anyone have experience with that? Will keeping it as a rental still make me a resident?

CA will go after you for having a library card you forgot. A blockbuster membership from the 90s. Literally anything

I still pay CA tax 😞

If you die don’t get buried in CA or they’ll retroactively claim you were resident

Haha I know, so I’m trying to do it cleanly. Mailing address, drivers license, voter registration, prob forming an llc. But I would still have a rental property in CA

I claim residency there. I haven’t thought to change until this discussion.

I moved to texas before nomading. Got a cheap rental there, driver license, vehicle registration, voting registration - everything. I moved entirely out of CA with no intention of returning.

😂

My mother never lived in CA but my sister did and occasionally my mother would mail things to my sister (parents live outside of the US) and she still had to fight with CA every year about taxes