Unemployment in France: should I declare this in joint taxes?

[AlexaT 15]

Hi, 

 

I benefitted from French unemployment from Jan to April 2017, I moved here in March on a K1 visa and made $0 since then since I can't work. My wife and I are looking into taxes and we would like to file jointly - I understand that I should declare my income overseas for the whole year but is unemployment considered as income? I am not trying to not declare it I just genuinely need clarification because I have to give the approx amount we will be declaring for our healthcare.

 

 

Thanks!

[Nitas_man 3,100]

5 hours ago, AlexaT said:

Hi, 

 

I benefitted from French unemployment from Jan to April 2017, I moved here in March on a K1 visa and made $0 since then since I can't work. My wife and I are looking into taxes and we would like to file jointly - I understand that I should declare my income overseas for the whole year but is unemployment considered as income? I am not trying to not declare it I just genuinely need clarification because I have to give the approx amount we will be declaring for our healthcare.

 

 

Thanks!

Yep.  Hopefully you were not in the US back in 2016 so that you can use physical presence to exempt some or all of this income.

 

 

[AlexaT 15]

1 hour ago, Nitas_man said:

Yep.  Hopefully you were not in the US back in 2016 so that you can use physical presence to exempt some or all of this income.

 

 

Hi, thanks for the answer.

 

I was in the US as a J1 student, from August 2015 to June 2016.

 

This is getting a bit complicated for me! 

I don't really mind not exempting it because it was so little money anyway but I will look into my options. I guess what annoys me is this counts towards French taxes and I wasn't even in the US at the time so it just doesn't really make sense to me, but... whatever i guess

[Nitas_man 3,100]

23 hours ago, AlexaT said:

Hi, thanks for the answer.

 

I was in the US as a J1 student, from August 2015 to June 2016.

 

This is getting a bit complicated for me! 

I don't really mind not exempting it because it was so little money anyway but I will look into my options. I guess what annoys me is this counts towards French taxes and I wasn't even in the US at the time so it just doesn't really make sense to me, but... whatever i guess

Yeah unemployment probably won't trigger any tax due.  Your other choice is to take the exemption as a bonafide resident of France from the first of the year through entry date,  It's a smaller amount that can be exempted, but you probably won't owe taxes.

 

That one is a little trickier and it would be a good idea to pay a preparer to file your 2017 taxes.

[AlexaT 15]

9 minutes ago, Nitas_man said:

Yeah unemployment probably won't trigger any tax due.  Your other choice is to take the exemption as a bonafide resident of France from the first of the year through entry date,  It's a smaller amount that can be exempted, but you probably won't owe taxes.

 

That one is a little trickier and it would be a good idea to pay a preparer to file your 2017 taxes.

Thank you for your help

I will definitely look into it but I'm not too worried as it won't be much anyway and we'll be filing in a few months.

I was just wondering whether I should declare it or not, legally. In the end there's too many little things and I honestly don't think it's worth hiring someone to do it since I benefitted from so little anyway... but thank you bec1use you gave me an answer and some tips if it's not too tricky I'll look into it myself and otherwise I'll just go the simple route

[Nitas_man 3,100]

54 minutes ago, AlexaT said:

Thank you for your help

I will definitely look into it but I'm not too worried as it won't be much anyway and we'll be filing in a few months.

I was just wondering whether I should declare it or not, legally. In the end there's too many little things and I honestly don't think it's worth hiring someone to do it since I benefitted from so little anyway... but thank you bec1use you gave me an answer and some tips if it's not too tricky I'll look into it myself and otherwise I'll just go the simple route

You gotta declare it unfortunately to file jointly.  The allowable exemption however is pretty generous, this should not affect you or family income and overall filing jointly is to your advantage as a family.

 

Google foreign earned income tax credit and the IRS has some simple tax topic brochures on the subject.  I would post a link but I'm using my phone.  Good luck!

Edited November 5, 2017 by Nitas_man

[AlexaT 15]

3 minutes ago, Nitas_man said:

You gotta declare it unfortunately to file jointly.  The allowable exemption however is pretty generous, this should not affect you or family income and overall filing jointly is to your advantage as a family.

 

Google foreign earned income tax credit and the IRS has some simple tax topic brochures on the subject.  I would post a link but I'm using my phone.  Good luck!

Thank you so much! 

 

Im not sure where you're at and hopefully you're done with all this and the questions, but otherwise good luck to you too on your own journey

[Nitas_man 3,100]

50 minutes ago, AlexaT said:

Thank you so much! 

 

Im not sure where you're at and hopefully you're done with all this and the questions, but otherwise good luck to you too on your own journey

LOL we're in Saudi going through the necessary to clear out.  Same to you!