Hi @pk ,
I'll answer as best as I can:
a) are you both US citizen- YES. I am a dual US/UK national.
(b) is this your first year in the UK and if not how did you file for 2019 - second year, but the first was not a full year (from September 2019), so I didn't claim the exclusion, only listed the address as our residence. However, the UK tax year is April 2019-April 2020, so I filed a self-assessment (UK tax form), which included the income earned while living in the UK during that period. I paid voluntary National Insurance (UK SSI) because I didn't earn enough to be required to pay.
(c) why can your husband not exclude his foreign income if you are filing a joint return - he was in the States for nearly 6 months in 2020 and did not earn any income in the UK, only in the US. He owes on that.
(d) any thing else that clarifies the issue(s) - not sure other than I know I need to attach a copy of some certificate from HMRC. Also, I read in IRS publication 54 that as a self-employed person, I should take the foreign housing deduction and not the foreign housing exclusion, though I don't understand the difference. TurboTax only allows the exclusion. It also, and most importantly, does not let me exempt myself from self-employment taxes based on the equivalent taxes I paid in the UK. That puts me in a terrible bind because I'm probably going to have to hire an accountant, if I can't.
Thanks!
