>>38482519Yes this falls under a "foreign earned income exclusion"
As one criteria for this is:
>A U.S. resident alien who is a citizen or national of a country with which the United States has an income tax treaty in effect and who is a bona fide resident of a foreign country or countries for an uninterrupted period that includes an entire tax yearNow this does raise potential questions of whether or not Calli qualifies as a "bona fide resident"
But the USA does indeed have an income tax treaty. Which actually covers what constitutes a "bona fide resident"
The main question here is mainly where Calli maintains her "permanent residence" or failing that the "Contracting State with which his or her personal and economic relations are closest (center of vital interests)"
Now I would say Calli definitely falls under the latter in this regard. Assuming she has no permanent residence in the USA (which she does not seem to)
I think what has occurred in her case is that she either did her taxes herself (generally a bad idea in the USA due to how their tax is designed to maintain an industry) or had an existing accountant in the USA she had been using before she left for Japan and just kept as her accountant out of habit with said accountant not understanding foreign income taxation.
Either way this oversight occurred because the one doing the taxes lacked the specific knowledge of foreign income for US citizens required to do the job properly.
Calli has likely switched accountants (or actually hired one). Employing a specialist who immediately did the same sort of facepalm that is commonly seen among accountants elsewhere in the world where taxation is mostly automatic when they first see their clients books.
The "For fucks sake you dumb fuck you are paying so much more tax than you need to" facepalm.
This would explain why Calli has returned to Japan. The US citizen tax debuff has been negated.
