bealerDSB

1.
Your profile discription is an understatment.

2.
I nearly deleted all my posts and discontinued feeding the updates on here, because of you.
I welcome advice, but kindly keep your self-opinions to yourself, if they are of no use - other than to fragment what was a coming together of minds.

3.
You are not the IRS, so don't tell me what is going to happen, because the opposite of your thoughts (too many to list) is actually occuring.

4.
I was granted a filing extension by the IRS - Combat Zone (all done through my advisor), so ALL my refund years ARE being processed, contrary to your official opinion of (3) year cut-off.

5.
I don't domicile in the U.S anymore, and I'm not classed as a resident of Spain yet - because I'm not in the Country for the required collective # of days per year (as yet).

6.
I've even been given money back interest ontop of my 2009 refund recently because they've (IRS) had the amount for so long.
So.., how will I be getting penalities, inFACT I am getting plus-ups..?!

7.
A lot of my fortune is down to the a) way in which my advisor presented my multiple packets b) the order in which he did a)

8.
Not everything in life is black or white, sometimes there is a gray bit in the middle.

9.
Welcome to the gray area (me)

10.
I am employed because of my skill sets in this arena, none of which I will discuss, but so far as to say that I am worth the extra effort on my Companies behalf.

DSB.

Steve_

My opinion is my opinion, not my opinion based on what other people have said. How many of the other people in this thread have filed a 1040NR themselves I wonder. You're non-resident, so am I, I don't think any of them are, I might know something about it, having done it myself.

Fair point but I've dealt with the IRS enough to have an idea how they think, basically all tax authorities work things out in their favour so they get the money until proven otherwise.

I wasn't really talking about the IRS except in relation to getting your money back, I was talking about where you are actually resident for tax purposes. You aren't resident in the US, you're resident somewhere else. Generally speaking if you are overseas on some sort of official duty e.g. you work for the UN, you're in the Army etc. you don't pay say, Afghanistan's taxes, you pay the taxes where you are resident. So you are paying the full whack on what your income is, there's no foreign tax credit.

The point I was making is that your problem isn't the IRS and the NRA withholding, it seems to me they did you a favour because it made you think about your tax situation. The problem is you owe taxes wherever you reside. (And the IRS rule on 3 years is in the law, read the instructions for 1040X for example, maybe there is some way they can go back and refund prior to that but it's the first I've heard of it, the filing extension only helps with this years taxes).

Where you are ordinarily resident is where your principal residence (and spouse) are usually, admittedly I'm no expert on Spanish tax law but usually a "number of days" test is not the only test of residency. Hmm... I just looked it up on the web and Spanish law does use a "centre of interests" test as the basic test so it sounds to me as though you reside there, especially if you've gotten a tax ID there.

So basically you get the money back from the IRS and pay back taxes in Spain for as long as you've had your residence there (and wherever you resided before that). And start your own business or register as self-employed and invoice the US company. Give them a W-8BEN so they don't have to do NRA withholding (assuming that's what it says in the Spanish treaty) and you no longer have to file a 1040NR.

Not a grey area.