steveinbsas
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For those US citizens who have not yet filed their 2014 tax return there is an "easy" way to do so online and claim the foreign earned income exemption as well as the exemption for the non-compliance "tax" for failure to have ACA approved health insurance.
I have been using Tax Act Online for about five years. It is very easy to follow the steps and I've never had any problems with the returns I've filed. In fact, this year their program has prevented me from not including a 1099 that I didn't know about. Because I've used the same company in the past, my previous year's return is always avialble to import and I do not have to reenter the data for financial institutions which continue to send information (forms) to the IRS that I must report.
This the first year the tax (aka penalty) for not having approved health insurance kicks in unless you live outside of the USA for at least 330 days of the year. If you didn't have an approved policy, the tax will automatically be added to the total amount of tax you owe when you answer NO in the Federal Q & A, but will later be subtracted if you answer YES to the question about residing outside of the USA for more than 330 days of the year.
The program also asks is you would like to claim the foreign earned income tax exemption.
Before signing and submitting the return, there is an option to review it with a series of "alerts" which check with the information already received by the IRS. There was an alert for a 1099 that I never received. It was from a US financial institution and the amount was actually ZERO, but I backtracked and added it to my return (even though the 1099 should not have been sent in the first place). All of the information for the financial institution (address, federal tax ID, etc.) was already in the Tax Act system so I didn't have to go through my files to access and enter the info.
After electronically signing and submitting the return to the IRS, the program took less than a minute to display a notification that the return had been accepted by the IRS. I take this to mean that all if the numbers in my return matched all of the numbers that IRS had in their system. I believe I would have received a notification if that was not the case, but this has never happened.
PS: I use the "deluxe" Tax Act Online program. I believe it is also possible to file a federal return free of charge with this company, but I likes several of the "extra" features of the deluxe program. I did not "buy" any of the other services (defense in case of an audit, etc).
I have been using Tax Act Online for about five years. It is very easy to follow the steps and I've never had any problems with the returns I've filed. In fact, this year their program has prevented me from not including a 1099 that I didn't know about. Because I've used the same company in the past, my previous year's return is always avialble to import and I do not have to reenter the data for financial institutions which continue to send information (forms) to the IRS that I must report.
This the first year the tax (aka penalty) for not having approved health insurance kicks in unless you live outside of the USA for at least 330 days of the year. If you didn't have an approved policy, the tax will automatically be added to the total amount of tax you owe when you answer NO in the Federal Q & A, but will later be subtracted if you answer YES to the question about residing outside of the USA for more than 330 days of the year.
The program also asks is you would like to claim the foreign earned income tax exemption.
Before signing and submitting the return, there is an option to review it with a series of "alerts" which check with the information already received by the IRS. There was an alert for a 1099 that I never received. It was from a US financial institution and the amount was actually ZERO, but I backtracked and added it to my return (even though the 1099 should not have been sent in the first place). All of the information for the financial institution (address, federal tax ID, etc.) was already in the Tax Act system so I didn't have to go through my files to access and enter the info.
After electronically signing and submitting the return to the IRS, the program took less than a minute to display a notification that the return had been accepted by the IRS. I take this to mean that all if the numbers in my return matched all of the numbers that IRS had in their system. I believe I would have received a notification if that was not the case, but this has never happened.
PS: I use the "deluxe" Tax Act Online program. I believe it is also possible to file a federal return free of charge with this company, but I likes several of the "extra" features of the deluxe program. I did not "buy" any of the other services (defense in case of an audit, etc).
