@pk thanks for all your help !... just to summarize some dummy proof bullet points 🙂 ( maybe to help others). are my following statements correct.
if I am willing to go thru the aggravation of completing form 1116 and I see the foreign tax credit calculates to be more than $300 (for single TP ) than its a no brainer to use it an d NOT elect the safe harbor method
if you use the safe harbor method (ie , you forfeit any of the EXCESS foreign tax you paid for this tax year (ie you can not add it to the carry fwd amount that you may have been accumulating from prior years?
you should always compare taking the deduction vs the credit because your foreign tax for a given year may in some circumstances be high enough that the deduction is better than the credit because the credit is limited by several factors calculated in form 1116
taking foreign tax as a deduction only applies to the tax paid in this tax year (ie. there is no using the carry fwd tax from prior years to create a deduction for this year.
