Em147

Hello,
I knew this was going to be a nightmare but I'm really confused! I have just returned to the UK after 5 years in the US on a J-1 visa. I have been filing tax returns (1040-EZ) as a resident alien for the last 4 years in the US. I'm not sure what to do about last years tax return (2015), I worked from January 1st to October 1st in the US so by the substantial presence test I'm still a resident alien but have been back working in the UK since. Does anybody know if I should just file a 1040 as usual? Will I need to declare my UK income on this form as I will pay UK tax on the UK income? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you,
Em

robin1234

I wonder if you should ask this question on the U.S. Forum, as there are more people there who know this stuff, and a lot of them never look at this MBTTUK area...

Disenchanted

Agreed, you will get more of a reply there on this subject.

Did you have UK tax withheld from your UK earnings? The IRS expect tax on all your earnings so yes, you need to include that on your USA return.

You are likely to have not reached the tax threshold in the UK but did they automatically withhold tax there? If so how will you deal with it, claim it back because you will also pay US tax on it or invoke tax treaty and get credit for it on your US tax return?

Do you intend to return to the USA? If not you could always just do a tax return based on your US earnings and not declare your UK earnings. As far as I know there is no responsibility for the UK to disclose your earnings to the IRS, so you just file an SA in the UK.

Just out of interest, did you have a UK bank account in the UK while in the US and did you file FBAR and FACTA forms?

nun

What was your J-1 category? ie. researcher/professor, student etc.

Whatever it was I bet that there will only be US tax on US source income after you returned to the UK you'll ether end up filing a 1040NR or as a part year resident