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khaled_k
Jan 23, 2009, 08:33 PM
I am a us citizen and my husband is a resisdent with a social security number. My question is when I fill out my taxes do I need to add his income into wages manually as it is coming up a negative number since we are using the foreign exclusion. He lived all year in a foreign country so he has physical presence there. I don't have a w2 for him as they don't do that there. I do have a statement from his company of what his wages were. I just don't think it looks right when his income makes our combined income less that what I made so I don't think it is right.

MukatA
Jan 23, 2009, 11:07 PM
By claiming earned income exemption, your income can not become negative. Maximum credit is maximum foreign income added in total income. Read: Your U.S. Tax Return: U.S. Citizen or Resident with Foreign Income (http://taxipay.blogspot.com/2008/03/us-citizen-or-resident-with-foreign.html)

khaled_k
Jan 23, 2009, 11:20 PM
Yes I understand that but in my tax program it is deduting his income from mine so I'm wondering why?

IntlTax
Jan 24, 2009, 05:37 AM
A positive number should show up on line 7 and a negative number should show up on line 21 (from Form 2555).

For the official IRS discussion of the exclusion see Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=97130,00.html)