Hi, Tax experts

Thanks all the help in the past. I have tried quite hard to go through most of the relevant tax publication to avoid waste your precious time to answer some obvious question that I can find the answer myself. But your advise definitely help me a lots for the area that I am confused or mis-understood.


Here are some question I need some advise, before that, I restate my status as following:

My husband was transferred by his company from UK to US head office in Oct 08 with L1 visa. Me and our daughter joined him in Nov08 and stay in US since. He works full time and expect to stay US for whole year 2009. I don't have any income in US or UK. We are both UK citizens. We stay 8 years in UK before move to USA.


Q1: If we make the first year choice for 2008 and file married joint return. Do we meet Bona Fide Residence test to claim Foreign earned income exclusion?

Q2: If we meet the Bona Fide Residence test, is that the period for our Bona Fide resident end at the day in Oct 08 my husband arrived USA as L1 visa holder, even though he spent 2 weeks in July08 in USA for business trip?

Q3: when I try to work out the part-year exclusion for year 2008, should I reduce the maximum limit further more for the two weeks he was in USA for Business trip for UK branch?

Q4: We paid all the expense for our UK house, do we qualify for foreign Housing exclusion?

Q5: What Form we should use for California state tax return? Should we consider we are the residents for the whole as well for tax purpose?

Sorry for the long list, even a " Yes or No" answer will be much appreciated.

Thanks

Sylvia

Q1: If we make the first year choice for 2008 and file married joint return. Do we meet Bona Fide Residence test to claim Foreign earned income exclusion? Yes, you can file joint return as residents after you meet SPT in 2009. You are UK citizen and were in UK for last 8 years, so you are bona fide resident of UK.

Q2: If we meet the Bona Fide Residence test, is that the period for our Bona Fide resident end at the day in Oct 08 my husband arrived USA as L1 visa holder, even though he spent 2 weeks in July08 in USA for business trip? Yes.

Q3: when I try to work out the part-year exclusion for year 2008, should I reduce the maximum limit further more for the two weeks he was in USA for Business trip for UK branch? No. Use some tax software. It will handle this.

Q4: We paid all the expense for our UK house, do we qualify for foreign Housing exclusion? No, as you were not maintaining second house in the U.S. as the same time.

Q5: What Form we should use for California state tax return? Should we consider we are the residents for the whole as well for tax purpose? States do not have same rules for residency as the federal. You are resident of CA from Oct 2008.
Read about L1 tax filing: Your U.S. Tax Return: The U.S. Visas

Thanks for the quick response, MukatA