@aussiebobaustin wrote:
Thanks PK,
4. Your idea of filing an Australian Tax return is new.... I haven't filed one for say 25+ years and it would give the Australian tax folks a chance to tax the Superannuation , but to my knowledge the distributions are not subject to Australian tax.
But that's kind of the issue. With the treaty, you either treat it as taxable investment income that you as a US person pay tax on, or you treat it like Australian social security.
What are the rules on Australian super payments? Under US law, social security is not taxable if it is your only income, but may be taxable if you have other income over a certain threshold. If you file in Australia, you might not have to pay at all, but you have to give them that chance. And then, you have to see if the tax you owe to Australia, if any, is more or less than the tax you would owe to the US if you treated it as a taxable trust.
