@Raj1
Thank you for your answers to my question(s).
1. Generally , if your tax home is abroad ( i.e. you live and work abroad ), then your earnings in that country , even if paid by a US entity ( other than US govt. or any of its subsidiaries / departments etc. ) are considered foreign earnings ( sourced to the country wherein the work was done/ tax home ).
2. As a US person ( citizen / GreenCard / Resident) you are still taxed by the US on your world income and you still need to participate / contribute to FICA ( the extent however depends on whether the tax-home country has a totalization agreement with the USA or not.
3. If one is to assume that you are employed by US govt (/ subsidiaries etc. ) or you are abroad ONLY for a short period ( i.e. you would not be eligible for foreign earned income exclusion / foreign tax credit / deduction etc. etc. , tax home is still USA ) then the best federal tax withholding estimator is --->
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/tax-withholding-estimator
Note that in this case the employer is still assumed to be participating in shared FICA contribution and you still have to take care of / declare State withholding just as if you were in the USA.
4. More common case is where the employee is assigned to a local subsidiary / entity of the US entity and your tax home is foreign because you will stay abroad long enough to qualify for foreign tax home, foreign earned income exclusion / foreign tax credit/ deduction etc. etc. and may or may not have State taxes to contend with . In such a case , my suggestion would be to use your current W-4 as the best effort ( I recognize that your gross income would change quite a bit from what you were recognizing while in the USA because of the things that your employer would pay while you are abroad. I have been there and I know from personal experience because of the Hypo computations that they go through -- they are trying to make you not to penalized because of foreign assignment plus give some more . I am assuming here that 2023 is your first year of foreign assignment -- it is kind of messy but in the end it all works out.
5. To your specific questions about which areas to fill -- the withholding estimator should help in this . You can also see the W-4 and its instructions here --- > https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf
If this information is not sufficient to clear up your doubts/issues, please can you tell me more about the following -- (a) which country are you located - tax home; (b) when did you arrive there and how long do you expect to be there ; (c) are you a remote worker for a US entity -- perhaps whom used to work in the USA bit have moved abroad but continues to provide services to the US employer; (d) do you have other significant financial connections to USA -- own home ( which state ), bank accounts, investment props ( which state ) etc. etc.
Please if you can answer my questions , I would appreciate that
Namaste
pk
