Bright!Tax US Expat Tax Blog

April 15 has a way of sneaking up on all of us. One minute you’re making New Year’s resolutions, and the next you’re staring down the tax deadline, wondering how it got here so fast. If your paperwork is still in limbo—or you’d simply like a little breathing room—the Internal Revenue Service has a safety […]

Form 1118 is notoriously complex.

In fact, the IRS estimates that it takes about 25 hours to complete. Fortunately, as a US expat-specific tax firm, we’re familiar with Form 1118 and here to walk you through it: what it is, who should file it, how to complete it, and more.

Here’s the expat tax surprise no one enjoys: moving abroad doesn’t mean breaking up with the IRS. U.S. citizens and resident aliens are taxed on their worldwide income—whether that’s wages in London, capital gains in Hong Kong, qualified dividends in Paris, or even Social Security checks showing up in Costa Rica. Thankfully, there’s a way […]

Running a business overseas? Congratulations—you now have not only more stamps in your passport, but also more paperwork in your tax return. Enter Form 8858, the IRS’s way of keeping tabs on your foreign disregarded entities (FDEs) and branches. This form isn’t about paying extra tax—it’s about disclosure. The IRS wants a snapshot of your […]

Living abroad can reset almost everything—your time zone, your grocery list, even your definition of “good coffee.” What it doesn’t reset? Your obligation to file a U.S. tax return. For expats, the real prize is tax relief through the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE) or Foreign Housing Exclusion. But to qualify, you need to show […]