- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Get your taxes done using TurboTax
The right way is first to enter your income as Business Income and then to exclude the income under the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion section of the program, where you will enter it again.
While you will not owe any income tax on the amount excluded as Foreign Earned Income you will still owe self-employment tax. This will be equal to 15.3% of your net profit on the business. The only way that this type of tax is not collected is if you are already paying a similar tax to your resident country on the same income and the United States has a Totalization agreement with that country for social security/social insurance taxes.
You mention that your level of income is low, so it sounds as if it may be that you wouldn't owe income tax on your income even if you didn't exclude it as earned overseas. This would explain why your numbers do not change at all. You can check to see if this is the case by viewing your Tax Summary (under Tax Tools, then Tools in the menu on the left.) If you see your tax due on the line for Other taxes this indicates it is referring only to the self-employment tax, which you must pay on your foreign earnings.
In the section for the FEIE in TurboTax, be sure that you check the box that your income is from self-employment so that the interview will ask the appropriate questions and not duplicate your income. That question should look like this:
**Mark the post that answers your question by clicking on "Mark as Best Answer"