Glaring Error, Form 2555, country dropdown menu list is woefully incomplete…. Expats use it for recording housing location for foreign housing exclusion

[cellowomyn]

Turbotax needs to correct this ASAP ! The housing location dropdown menu was indeed complete for many prior years, (like 4-5)  with all the countries of the world included. Now, MANY  countries are excluded, so customers cannot show the country where we are claiming our housing exclusion benefit, which is REQUIRED on the FORM 2555 for 2023 taxes. There is also no selection of “other” as there was previously. Please address this ASAP! 

[SusanY1]

Other is an option in the foreign housing exclusion section.  This year, however, instead of being at the bottom of the list it's in alphabetical order of the countries which does make it a little harder to find. 

This particular list is of the countries and/or cities that have a limit higher than the standard limit for the housing exclusion.  "Other" will generate the default limit for you if your specific location isn't listed.

The name of the country is only required in that section of 2555 (for Line 29a) when using one of the higher limits.  

[cellowomyn]

Dear Susan Y., 

Thank you for your prompt assistance. 

i want to suggest that Turbotax go back to the more intuitive “other”at the bottom or at the top of the drop-down menu. When i thought about it …..i have used Form 2555 for almost ten years through Turbotax! So, if this is something new, an explanatory sidebar might be nice to alert the user. 

Because while the foreign exclusion amounts are pretty clear to the customer, i had no idea that the countries would not all be listed in the menu, and did not know anything about the differing exclusion limits by country as regards housing. I was asked to name my country within the questions provided by TurboTax,   but on the Form 2555, my first choice A-L shows “not selected”,and selection for M-Z shows “other”, so my form simply says “other”

So, is thst gonna fly? is that gonna raise red flags, or is it ok? Thank you, 

Kind Regards,

[SusanY1]

Yes, "other" is fine for the country for purposes of the housing exclusion and it will not raise any red flags at all.  "Other" lets the IRS know that the default amount ($98.63 per day in 2023) is the limit on these expenses.  

Your suggestion that we include additional detail here is a good one (as well as moving the "Other" so that it's more obvious).

You're not expected to know things like the difference in the housing exclusion limits and we'll do what we can to get your suggestion where it needs to be so that this area causes less confusion next year!  

Thank you for the suggestion.