self employed foreign income - where to list to pay social security

[taxmom23]

My husband earned foreign income while living in the US as an online teacher for a college in a foreign country. He also paid taxes in that country that they automatically took out of his wages. Do we put his income as self-employed and then fill out the foreign tax credit section only? We filled out the foreign earned income section even though he doesn't qualify for an exclusion because TT took us into that section and it says we must put foreign income there. Now his income is doubled and we can't seem to delete the foreign earned income part out.

This if for 2023 taxes, using current online TT software. 

[ThomasM125 · Accepted solution]

If his income was self-employment income, then you would report it as such in TurboTax and complete the foreign tax credit section to get credit for the foreign taxes paid. If his income was wage income reported on a W-2, you would enter it as such in TurboTax. If he didn't get a W-2 and the income was wage income, you would enter it only in the Foreign Earned Income and Exclusion section in TurboTax, but indicate that you don't want the foreign earned income exclusion. In all three scenarios, you would complete the foreign tax credit section.

If you need to delete the entry in the Foreign Earned Income and Exclusion section, go back into that section and you should see the income entry you made and you can then delete it. You may need to follow the same steps you took originally to see the entry.