Moved to the states - geting taxback

galwaydude

Hi,

We moved in march of this year and now that we are settled into life here we need to sort out a few things back home.My wife worked in ireland for 2 and a half years paying 41% in tax. She is a US citizen so she should be able to claim tax back.I checked with www.taxback.com and they told me that she should get a substantial amount back for her time in ireland.

I was just talking to my sister who is an acountant and she told me they charge 17% for companies. I thought i saw something a few months back saying they charge 10-15% fee for individuals.

Is there much work involved or should i let taxback.com do the job. My sister said she might be able to do it

The Sweeper

Interesting... I always thought you paid tax in the country where you're domiciled. So if your wife was domiciled in Ireland for 2.5 years, she owes Ireland 2.5 years tax. There may be a chance for her to claim tax back on the 0.5 years, but I'd be surprised if she could claim back for the two complete years.

If she claims she wasn't domiciled in Ireland at the time, and was domiciled in the US, she should then owe the US government tax for the 2.5 years she worked in Ireland.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that if getting your year's tax back was as easy as emigrating, we'd be a world of ever-migrating wanderers...

Taxes are a pain in the arse. I'm filing mine at the moment. If you've a good understanding, you could try doing it yourself - the tax offices tend to be very helpful with these things. Remember, a genuine mistake on your records won't be treated as a criminal effort at fraud, but it can be expensive if you make incorrect declarations.

If you want to make the most out of international tax laws, I think you're best to get a professional to look at it...

Kernel32

I agree with Minesajackdaniels that this isn't as simple as you think. I looked into this before when I spent time working in Ireland and the US in the same year.

When your wife was in Ireland working and earning money she was required by the US government as a US citizen to file a tax return for each year regardless of her having income in the US or even living there. On the tax return it should have been recorded that she was living outside of the US for more that 6 months of the year and that she had foreign earned income. Due to the tax treaty between Ireland and the US she wouldn't have paid US tax on it.

I don't see how it's possible to claim back that tax paid in Ireland. She lived there and she paid tax there as a requirement of employment. The only thing I could see her being able to get is some tax back for the .5 years. The way it would work is based on her over paying on her tax while working for that half year. The tax she paid in was calculated based on her working for a full year. Because she worked a half year her income for that year was much lower than expected. This could likely mean she paid tax at a higher tax bracket than she should have. Best case I see is that she could get maybe half the tax back she paid in that half year working.

I would think very carefully about pursuing it though. If she didn't file her taxes with the IRS for those 2 years, or she filed and didn't disclose her foreign income you may open a can of worms you don't want to open. If it came to the IRS's attention she received money back on taxes from the Irish government but there is no record of foreign income, plus a couple of years of missed tax returns then that could possibly trigger an audit. No one wants to be audited by the IRS.