r/USExpatTaxes

Hey all, I have been working on preparing a Streamlined Domestic Offshore Procedures (SDOP) submission and I'm about to pull the trigger. Would love a sanity check from anyone who's been through this or advises on it.

NZ citizen, was living and working in Canada for a few years before getting a US green card in late 2021 and moving to the US. W-2 employee since Jan 2022, filed all my US returns on time using FreeTaxUSA. I had no idea about FBARs, PFIC reporting, or foreign trust reporting until recently. I self-prepared everything — no CPA involved. I did answer "Yes" to the Schedule B foreign account questions on all my returns, so I wasn't hiding anything — I just didn't understand the additional obligations.

I have a mix of NZ and Canadian accounts — a NZ retirement account (similar to a 401k), a couple of NZ bank accounts, some Canadian brokerage/savings accounts that were mostly wound down in 2022, a small crypto account, and a multi-currency transfer account. Peak aggregate balance around ~$60K USD across all accounts (2021 year-end), declining in later years as the Canadian accounts closed.

I'm filing my 2025 return on time by April 15 (no extension) to push the SDOP 3-year amendment window to 2023–2025. This means 2022 and earlier fall outside the window, so I only need to amend 2023 and 2024. If I'd filed an extension, the window would shift back to 2022–2024 and I'd need an extra amended return. 2021 is especially important to exclude — that's when I had the highest Canadian account balances before winding them down, and I only had the green card for about 2 months with no US wages.

This was the most complex part. The NZ retirement scheme is classified as both a PFIC and a foreign trust under US tax law. For each year I'm reporting it with three forms:

• Form 8621 — PFIC reporting with a Section 1296 mark-to-market election. Reporting the annual unrealized gain as ordinary income (roughly $400–$1,400/year depending on fund performance and exchange rates).
• Form 3520 — Foreign trust ownership reporting.
• Form 3520-A (substitute) — Since the NZ fund doesn't file US trust returns, I prepare a substitute with balance sheet, income statement, and a grantor trust owner statement citing IRC §§ 671–679 and §1296.

These three forms go with each amended return (2023 and 2024) and also with my original 2025 return (mailed separately since I'm e-filing the 1040).

What I've prepared:

• 2025 Form 1040 ready to e-file with all foreign income included (retirement fund MTM, foreign bank interest, crypto staking rewards)
• 2025 Forms 8621, 3520, 3520-A ready to mail separately
• 2023 and 2024 amended returns (1040-X) adding retirement fund MTM income, foreign bank interest, and foreign tax credits
• 2023 and 2024 Forms 8621, 3520, 3520-A to attach to each amendment
• 5 delinquent FBARs (2021–2025) ready to e-file on BSA E-Filing with "Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures" as the reason
• Form 14654 with a non-willful narrative explaining I'm a recent immigrant who self-filed, didn't know about PFIC/trust/FBAR obligations, and had no intent to evade
• SDOP penalty calculated at ~$3,000 (5% of highest year-end aggregate)

Total cost:

• SDOP penalty: ~$3,000
• Additional tax on amended returns: ~$500
• Interest: TBD (letting IRS calculate)
• All-in: ~$3,500–$4,000

Does this plan seem sound? Anything I'm missing or any red flags? I'm about to e-file the 2025 return this week and submit the SDOP package to Austin in May. Did this entirely without a CPA. Feeling fairly confident but would appreciate any gut checks before I commit.

Thanks in advance.

I'm a US citizen looking in Taiwan on an ARC. My Taiwanese pay stub shows money has been paid for the following items:

勞保公提

健保公提

Does anyone with knowledge of Taiwan-US taxes know if I must report the corresponding amounts anywhere on US taxes, and where in the tax code/publications/treasury regulations I can verify that? Note that there is no tax treaty, so things don't always work the way they should.

I believe that these items are not taxed by the USA, but please tell me if I'm wrong about that. I'm going to file form 2555, and I am well below the FEIE threshold, so if they're taxable then I suppose that I can report and exclude them.

ChatGPT has reasons that I don't understand why I shouldn't just report everything to be safe and then exclude it on form 2555.

I understand that I must file US taxes even though I am now a resident of Taiwan.

Hi all, hoping for a bit of perspective because my situation feels slightly awkward from a finance standpoint.

I’m an American living and working in the UK. My take-home pay is about £3,300/month after tax. I currently have about £14k in savings in the UK, and around $13k in savings/investments in the US.

One annoying complication is that because I’m a US citizen, a lot of the normal UK investing routes are basically off limits (or at least very complicated) because of US tax rules around PFICs etc. So things like typical ISAs with funds don’t seem very viable unless I want to deal with a huge reporting headache. At the moment I’m mostly just sitting on cash and a small amount of US investments.

The main thing I’m trying to figure out is how to structure my finances so I can afford to live alone. I’ve been sharing for years and it’s honestly starting to take a toll on my quality of life, so having my own place is becoming a pretty big priority for me.

For context:

- Take-home: ~£3,300/month

- UK savings: ~£14k

- US savings/investments: ~$13k

- No debt

I know living alone in London is expensive and I’m trying to think realistically about what’s sustainable.

A few things I’m wondering:

- What proportion of income would be reasonable to spend on rent in London in my situation?

- Given the investing limitations as a US citizen, does it make sense to just keep building cash savings for now?

- Are there any investment approaches that actually work well for US citizens living in the UK?

I’m also curious if people have suggestions for ways to increase income on the side. I have two master’s degrees (both in social sciences) and work in a policy/research-related role. If anyone has ideas for side work that tends to pay reasonably well in that space (tutoring, research interviews, editing, consulting, etc.), I’d be interested to hear what people have found worthwhile.

Would really appreciate any advice, especially from anyone who has dealt with the US/UK tax weirdness or made living alone work on a similar income.

Thanks!

I'm american living in canada with my canadian husband. We file married filing jointly and all of our accounts are joint. I have no accounts just in my name.

My spouse and I (NRA) have filed Married Filing Jointly (MFJ) for 2023 and 2024 (both years through a CPA). We plan to file MFJ for 2025 as well.

This year, I spent time understanding the taxes and looked into our prior year returns filed by the CPA and realized we have a few gaps:

​

* For ​2023, we missed attaching the Section 6013(g) election statement and some foreign interest income

* For ​2024, the filing status "Married filing jointly" checkbox was ticked but did not tick the specific new checkbox for "treating a nonresident alien or dual-status alien spouse as a U.S. resident" and did not attach the statement. The Foreign income and FBAR were filed correctly for this year

Some questions I had:

1. For 2025, should we tick the specific "treating NRA spouse as a U.S. resident" box and attach the election statement now? Could doing this correctly for the first time trigger an audit or "look-back" into the previous years?

2. For the prior years, I was looking at filing an amendment through the CPA to remediate the gap. Should we file this amendment to add the election statements to both 2023 and 2024 and include the missing 2023 foreign income? Is this the suggested path to fix this?

We plan to file the 2025 return first and then amend the 2023/2024 returns by May.

Appreciate any advice, thanks so much!

I tried to mail my tax return at my local post office on Friday but failed. The postage machine said there was no service to the United States. I asked a clerk at the bureau, and she confirmed what the machine had said: delivery services to the US were suspended. She told me to go online to the postal service's website. Curious, I tried my luck at another post office and was told the same thing.

I went to the website and found a way to buy postage for my envelope. I bought my stamps, which had to be printed out and glued to my envelope. After completely the transaction, a list of steps appeared for mailing the envelope. Step 3 said that I had to fill out a customs declaration form online.

I clicked the link for the form and started filling it out. I reached a page for entering the address of the recipient. In the Country field, there was a dropdown list of countries that started with Afghanistan. I scrolled down through the list to find "United States." It wasn't in the list.

Every package sent from this country to the United States has to include a customs declaration form. Currently, the only way to buy postage for a package to the United States is through the post office's website. And the website's customs declaration form does not include "United States" in its list of countries. (Clarification: It does not include the local name for the United States.)

One cannot send a package to the United States through our local postal service. And if one could, the minimum postage rate is about $40. If you want to send a one-ounce package to the States, for example, you have to pay $40 for postage.

And it gets worse. There is no postal service for sending packages. However, if there were a service, the sender would have to calculate the US import tax (tariff) for the package and pay it through the website, so that it could then be given to the United States. The tariff has to be paid here as part of the postage transaction.

Back to my story, I searched through the website to see whether envelopes were exempt from this requirement. Buried in the middle of a page was a one-sentence paragraph that said envelopes like mine did not have to include a customs declaration form. Yesterday, I took the envelope, bearing its website stamps, to a local post office and dropped it into the mailbox, as instructed by the steps. In theory, it should make its way to the United States. In theory...