I live and work in a foreign country as a dual national. My employer doesn't provide me with W2 because I'm hired under the other nationality. Where do I file my income?

[pk]

@osama_momen , just to be sure that am understanding your situation correctly :

(a) you  a US person ( Citizen ) live in a foreign country --- { which country , when did you enter / set-up household in that country, is your family there with you , are they also citizen  / Resident of the US  ?}

(b) you work  in that country  { again which country, are you employed by a local entity / company/ employer, do you pay taxes  on your income, etc.? }

(c) Your employer provides you an income statement  { it shows the total amount paid to , any taxes paid on that income, any retirement contributions  etc, any social security equivalent taxes etc. etc. -- yes ? }

(d) this is your first year preparing a US return while being working and living min a foreign country {yes?} 

While I await your answers to the questions in the brackets , generally  US taxes you on your world income -- with some incomes exclusions / foreign tax credits available  to reduce the double taxation bite.   TurboTax can help you prepare  your  tax return and  does easily handle the foreign income and its implications.  Please answer my questions and one of us will help you on this .

pk

[osama_momen]

Thank you for your reply 

I have established home in Saudi Arabia since 1994. I have always filed my taxes since I started working using turbo tax. It used to let me enter my income info without need to input any W2 info but it looks that this has changed this heat as I can’t progress past that page without. Below the answers to the questions

- I live in Saudi Arabia and I fulfill  the physical presence requirements as well as the bona fide resident requirements. My family is with me for the past 10+ years and they are all dual nationals 

- I’m employed as a Saudi by a foreign affiliate of a US business. We do pay taxes in the form of mandatory “social security” deductions which - according a PWC consultant - are taxes 

- I do have a payslip that’s has all the compensation and deduction details.

- not the first year doing my taxes. I’ve been doing it on Turbo tax for close to 20 years 

If I may ask, under which field do I enter my foreign earned income? Thanks 

[pk]

@osama_momen , understand the situation, to the extent  explained in your response. Thank you.

I have no experience  with  TurboTax On-line version  but should be substantially similar to the windows desktop version.  The steps to enter and exclude  your foreign earned income is as follows :

1. Under Personal and then Personal Income, chose " I will choose what I work on", Continue

2. You should now see a screen "Your 2021 Income Summary. On this screen scroll down  all the way to the bottom.

3. Now  under the paragraph " Less Common Income, half way down the list you will see  " Foreign Earned Income  and Exclusion" --- select "start" button to the right of this line.

 This will now walk you through form 2555  for purposes of excluding  foreign earned income  up to the max allowed for this year.

Two points to note  ---  (a)  Saudi Arabia does not have a tax treaty  with the USA --- there is no income tax there .;  (b)  PWC 's comment on "Social Security " equivalent that you pay in SA, is not income tax  and therefore  is not eligible for  foreign tax credit ( on  foreign incomes no excluded ).   Also because there is no totalization  agreement between SA and USA,  you may be liable for US  FICA taxes .  ( I have not studied this area for SA but for many countries social security may have to be considered   at least for self-employed foreign earnings ).

Is there more I can do for you ?

pk

[osama_momen]

Thank you so much. All points taken. I have decided to download the desktop version and indeed did find the field you pointed to. I’m sure it’s also available online but I think the desktop version is just easier.

I do have another question: my daughter has SSN (as confirmed by email from the SS Rome office) but we never received the card since they insist on sending it by regular email which somehow never arrives. I understand that you can only list dependents with SSN on your tax return, and in this case just does have a SSN but we don’t have the number on hand.. so how does one usually deal with this situation?

thanks 

[pk]

@osama_momen , regarding SS card for your daughter --- if you know the number  ( but do not have the physical card ), you can still use the number .  If on the other hand , if you do not have any record / memory of the SSN then you have to wait till you have the number.  The problem is if you enter her details and leave the SSN blank  then TubroTax will prevent you from e-filing  ( show as an error  that must be corrected ).

If you are willing to file by mail then , consider using a dummy SSN   just to satisfy the  software ( such as  your own number  but change the last four digits to 2050 or similar ).  Then tell TurboTax that you want to file by mail. Print out the return, white-out the dummy SSN  with xxx-xx-xxxx.  Now add a letter explaining the situation. And mail the whole thing to the IRS.   This will force a human intervention, will take a longtime to resolve ( IRS is pretty backed up ) but  you have complied with the laws.  I am assuming here that  you are not in a refund position and thus  filing the return is mere formality ( to keep IRS happy  "Inshallah").

Hope this helps

pk