What do I actually have to file each year from the Emirates?
Two things that are easy to confuse. There is the tax return, which computes what is owed, and there is the informational reporting on accounts and assets, which is due whether or not anything is owed. In a jurisdiction that levies no personal income tax on salary, the local side may generate no personal return for that salary at all, so the annual exercise is the US return plus the reporting set. Both halves are prepared together, because the facts that support the exclusion claim on the return are the same facts that define the reporting.
Is there a local personal tax return for my salary?
Where the jurisdiction levies no personal income tax on employment income, there is generally no personal return computing tax on that salary, and so nothing to reconcile the US filing against. That is a genuine simplification of one side and a complication of the other: with no foreign tax to credit, the US return has to rely on the earned-income exclusion and the housing amount instead, and both depend on a qualifying test being met. Do not read the absence of a local return as the absence of an annual obligation.
Do I have to claim the exclusion, or is it applied automatically?
It has to be claimed on the return, and the claim has to be supported. The exclusion depends on a qualifying test being met for the period claimed, so the filing carries the facts that establish the test as well as the arithmetic that follows from it. If the return is filed without the claim, or with a claim the facts do not support, the outcome changes substantially, because there is no foreign tax on salary sitting behind it as a fallback. Assemble the evidence while preparing the filing, not in response to a query.
My whole salary is excluded, is the return still worth filing?
The return is still required, and filing it is what puts the exclusion claim on record. A computation arriving at nothing owed is not the same as having no obligation, and the reporting on accounts and assets is unaffected by the result of the tax computation. There is a practical reason too: a continuous filed record makes each following year straightforward, while a gap has to be explained and repaired later. A continuous record costs less to maintain than a gap costs to put right.
Which filings survive when my tax comes to nil?
The informational ones. Account and asset reporting continues regardless of whether any tax is owed, so the reporting set is prepared on the same timetable as a year with a liability. What varies with the tax result is only the tax computation itself. In this corridor that distinction does most of the damage, because the salary is often fully covered and the person reasonably concludes the year needs nothing at all. Build the annual file around what you hold, not around what you owe.
What documents should I keep if nobody local taxes me?
Keep the papers that prove the things your filing depends on: the assignment start date, a travel and presence record kept as the year runs for the qualifying test, the tenancy contract and payment evidence for the housing amount, the employment contract and any employer letter describing accommodation or allowances, and year-end statements for every account and holding. None of that arrives from a local tax authority in a jurisdiction that does not tax your salary, which means nobody will produce it for you later. Collect it as you go.
How would a foreign tax authority know I am resident there?
Mostly from information you or your bank already provided. Account-opening forms ask you to self-certify tax residence, and that certification is reported between authorities under the Common Reporting Standard or, for US accounts, under the FATCA framework. Beyond that: employer and payroll filings, property registries, immigration records and the tax filings of anyone who paid you. The realistic planning assumption is that the data arrives. See FATCA and information reporting.
How do families with assets in two countries handle inheritance?
With paperwork built for both systems rather than one. In practice that means wills that work where each asset actually sits, an executor with authority a foreign bank or land registry will accept, clearance certificates before the estate distributes so the executor is not left personally exposed, and an estate tax exposure calculation done while the person is alive and can still act on it. Doing it afterwards costs more and forecloses most of the options. See cross-border wills and trusts.
