Oh ma gah. I’ve never been so confused by taxes before.
I spoke with our accountant today, and thankfully Nick won’t have to pay double taxes. Since he will remain a citizen of Her Majesty, and not the US he will file his taxes in the UK.
Thankfully, the US and the UK have laws of reciprocity. Essentially meaning that we don’t have to be taxed twice, though there are several countries where that isn’t the case. Nick will remain in the pension system for the UK, and pay UK taxes – which makes sense considering all his income is British. Whereas I will pay US taxes as usual. He *could* choose to pay US taxes instead of UK, but that appears to make the process 369857698456 more complicated. If he has a US job, with US employers it could make more sense for him to file in the US. Since he doesn’t, we’ll be filing with two countries this year. Or rather, we’ll only be taxed once in each country.
I also worried that we would not count as a married couple this year for tax purposes. I thought this was a bit bogus since the US wouldn’t allow Nick to work here, AND they wanted to shirk my marital tax benefit? Jerks. When you fill out a W-4 it notes that if you are married to a non-resident alien you should file as single. My accountant says not to worry, if you’re married – you’re married. whippee! Our marriage is recognized! Which I can at least say is true of my LGBT friends in DC.. sadly not too many other places. le sigh.
Lesson of the day? Sometimes it’s a good idea to trust an expert and not *gasp* Google.
ps. Have you seen the crazy pants-ness all up on my friend’s formspring? http://www.formspring.me/jennacole Some of the less rabid anti immigration posts have been answered. I don’t know how these people don’t understand that being a lawful permanent resident is within tax law – and isn’t evading anything. I would laugh my butt off if some troll threatened me with an audit because they were so xenophobic. Not to mention, unless they’re a Native American I’m pretty sure they come from a line of immigrants. Paaaaathetic.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Unfortunately same-sex couples can’t file jointly for federal income taxes. I posted about this a couple of years ago (on WB) when I did a breakdown of how this impacts us. Being in California during the tax year in question, we were recognized as domestic partners which did help our state tax return. We fell into the second category, but in most states we would have fallen into the third one. Of course, being able to file jointly, as in scenario #1, would have been optimal.
- The Gingerbreads as married in the eyes of the U.S. government = $6600 tax return.
- The Gingerbreads as domestic partners in the state of California, but not recognized by the federal government* = $2884 tax return
- The Gingerbreads as “married in our hearts” aka “legal strangers”** = $1284 tax return
People get really weird about taxes (and immigration and gay stuff) and several people at the time responded to my post by telling me to stop whining/being political so I can certainly empathize.
Anyway, now it’s a whole new ballgame. I’m using an accountant because I have to file in Canada and the U.S. Ugh. As long as I’m a U.S. citizen living abroad, I’ll have to keep reporting to the IRS. Fun times.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Once again, the personal is political. So wtf were you supposed to say? Could the commentors not see that that is a difference of several thousand dollars?! Do you receive better tax benefits in Canada? I mean, in addition to your relationship actually being recognized? I think once you have to file in two countries, an accountant is definitely the way forward.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
Wow, Mrs. Gingerbread…I remember that post, and I’m pretty flabbergasted by those comments. Should you want to pay more than someone else in the same position? I mean, everyone I know files their taxes in such a way as to owe the least amount possible, right? You use all your deductions, file jointly if you can and it helps, etc to get the lowest possible (legal) bill. So I don’t understand why people would think it’s unreasonable for you to want to do the same thing. Ugh.
And the craziness on Jenna’s formspring is just that – craziness! Maybe I’m not as patient as her/you, but I think I’d have deleted a lot more of those.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Well, those types of questions I leave to her discretion. I only delete the ones that ask for her death, her baby’s death or say thinks like c word or b word face. Someone once asked how I know the difference between a mean comment and hard question. The citizenship ones, while xenophobic and asinine were questions and they weren’t swearing. So I left them for her to deal with; mean comments that don’t ask questions, or questions with excessive swearing commentary – they get deleted.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
*things -I need to make the font bigger in this comment box!
March 11th, 2010 at 6:31 am
Font size request duly noted and changed!
March 11th, 2010 at 11:01 am
This will be us next year when we do have to pay DOUBLE taxes for Singapore and the US. Argh if we had stayed in London…
March 11th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
i’ve been reading her formspring, stupid people!
anyway, ever since i’ve moved up to this area, i’ve been going to a real expert instead of going on h&r block.com, now i’ve been getting money back instead of owning money