Maximum stay in US for ex-pats

Question

My girlfriend a United States national living and working in China and she wants to come back to the US for the summer. What's the maximum amount of time she can come back for before she has to worry about taxes. Are there any other issues she needs to watch out for.

EDIT: By worry I mean how long before she potentially needs to pay additional taxes.

Answer 1

If she is a U.S. citizen, she needs to worry about U.S. taxes regardless of whether or not she is living in the U.S. She must file a tax return even if she spends 0 days in the U.S., and must pay U.S. taxes. Wikipedia has a good section on this. I believe you can claim the taxes paid in China to offset any monies owing in the U.S., but you'll want to consult an accountant to be sure.

There's an answer directly relevant to your question in the Global Tax Matters Blog.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure how things work from the Chinese side.

Answer 2

To quote @ChrisInEdmonton:

If she is a U.S. citizen, she needs to worry about U.S. taxes regardless of whether or not she is living in the U.S. She must file a tax return even if she spends 0 days in the U.S.

It's also worth pointing out that you need to declare all the moneys you made throughout the year wherever they came from.

But there is a another part involving worrying about taxes and that's whether or not you are going to have to pay additional taxes on the money you made abroad.

Foreign Earned Income Exclusion

If she absolutely wants to make sure that she won't pay additional taxes she needs to qualify for the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. It lets you exclude up to ~$91,500 from your taxes from money that you've made in another country. As far as I can tell it doesn't matter if you didn't pay any taxes on that amount.

There is a nifty question and answer form to see if you qualify, but the basic take away is:

You qualify IF:

• You are a US Citizen

AND

• You were bona fide resident of a foreign country or countries for an uninterrupted period that includes the entire tax year.

  OR

• You were physically present in a foreign country or countries for at least 330 full days during any period of 12 consecutive months

To me this all means that In the worst case situation, in any tax year, the maximum number of days you can stay in the US is 35 days

Foreign Tax Credit

Even if you don't qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion (for example if you just started a job half way through the year), you still may not have to pay any additional taxes. Instead you can take a credit or deduction for the taxes you already paid in the foreign country.

To me this means that if the foreign tax rate is higher than the federal taxes rate, you don't have to worry but if it's lower, then you will need to cover/pay the difference.

Note: I'm not a tax professional. Take everything I've said above as completed fiction until you check with someone who knows what they are talking about.