If you were only present in New Zealand for two months, you would not qualify for the foreign income exclusion. Therefore, you do not need to submit the Form 2555 as your income will not be excluded.
To qualify, you have to live outside the United States for at least 330 days during 12 consecutive months. It doesn't have to be all within the calendar year of 2018 ( 1/1 - 12/31). For more information, please see Foreign income and exclusion and Extension. For the tax year of 2018, the maximum foreign earned income exclusion amount is $103,900. If you do not qualify for the exclusion, you might be able to claim a foreign tax credit if you pay taxes to both the foreign country and the US government.
To enter foreign earned income/exclusion ( Form 2555) in TurboTax online program, here are the steps:
- After sign in to your account, select Take me to my return
- At the right upper corner, in the search box, type in foreign income and Enter
- Select Jump to foreign income
- Follow prompts
To enter form 1116, foreign tax credit :
- At the right upper corner, in the search box, type in foreign tax credit and Enter
- Select the 1st choice on the search results - Jump to foreign tax credit
- Start with screen Foreign Taxes and select Continue to follow prompts.
