The W-2 is the Japanese Version of the US W-2. Which is the Statement of Earnings that includes the "gross earnings' and the 'withheld earnings" along with my name and address and company name.
I've been making a copy of my Japanese W-2, changing the YEN to USD and translating the address and company name. I've always done this for the last 11 years. I've never had any request for the above forms.
I called TurboTax about a month ago. The lady said there's a problem with line 16..When I mentioned I got a letter from the IRS, as stated in my first post, she directed me to contact "Audit Defense" ( I filed the 2018 TurboTax with "TurboTax Live Deluxe".
The good person at Audit Defense looked over my files and said that I need to contact IRS by phone. So I called IRS, the lady looked at my return and said the line 16 should be 0.0. So I then faxed my reply to the above contact that send the letter requesting all those forms. In my FAX I made a copy of my front page of the 1040, highlighted line 16 and said that it should be 0.0, that my Foreign Witholding, Japanese withholding) was mistakenly entered there.
I sent the FAX on 3rd May.
On the day i made posed this post, 17 May was when I took a good look at both my 2017 return, using the old 1040 and the 2018, using the new 1040 and noticed that the request from the 2017 1040 form, line 64 is the SAME as the 2018, line 16: "Federal Income tax withheld from Forms W-2 and 1099".
NOTE: I had no problems with 2017 and previous TurboTax filings from 2011 with filling in old 1040, line 64 with my Japanese Withholding. After all, it is my Japanese FEDERAL withholding. NOT my American witholding. I think someone at the IRS misinterpreted 'Federal" as being US. Not the case, according to the 10 years TurboTax has been filing for up until this new 2018 1040 form.
As I understand it, Foreign Earned Income is tax exempt up to $100,000.
This is very important: Every year TurboTax has provided me with a refund equal to the Japanese withholding that I converted into USD.
Again, I appreciate your help. I'll do my best to keep you in the loop.
Summary:
US citiizen living as a Permanent Resident in Japan for the last 20 years. Has used TurboTax to file forms 2555 and 1040 for the last 11 years. Has always received a refund for the Japanese witholding that has been converted to USD for the last 10 years. This year is still pending because of above stated problem.
