Do I have to file at home while living in Australia?
For most people the answer turns on whether the ties that made them resident have actually ended. For a US citizen or green-card holder it does not: the return is due in Australia exactly as it would be at home. Everything else on the file follows from which of those you are.
Is there a treaty between my country and Australia?
Possibly, and the version in force for your year is the one that matters — protocols and multilateral-instrument positions change what a treaty does without changing its name. We check it against the authority rather than a summary. Where no treaty applies, domestic relief takes over.
I own property in Australia. Where is the rent taxed?
Where the property is. That is close to universal, and it usually arrives as withholding on the gross rent rather than as a return on the profit — which is why the election onto a net basis, where Australia offers one, is normally the first thing to check. Your home country taxes the same rent and credits what was paid.
Australia's tax year ends in June — how does that affect my home return?
It means a single home tax year sits across two Australian ones, so Australian figures cannot simply be lifted onto a home return. The income and the tax paid have to be apportioned into the periods the home year covers, which usually needs the payroll records month by month rather than the Australian annual summary alone. Credits follow the same apportionment, and a claim that quietly uses a whole Australian year against part of a home year is the kind of mismatch that gets picked up. We set the apportionment once, apply it to income and tax alike, and keep the workings with the return.
How do I work out the date I became an Australian resident?
By facts, not by the visa label or the flight date. What matters is when your home, your household and your everyday ties actually settled in Australia: the lease or purchase, the family's arrival, the employment start, local accounts and cover. The date you landed is evidence, but so is a period living in temporary accommodation before the household arrived. The date has to serve both countries, because the departure computation in one and the arrival computation in the other should meet at the same point. We settle it once, evidence it, and use it consistently on both sides.
I kept my house back home — does that make me still resident?
It is a significant fact, not a decision on its own. A property kept available for your own use points one way; the same property let at arm's length to a tenant on a proper lease points rather less strongly. What the authorities weigh is the whole pattern: where the household lives, where the working life is, where the accounts and everyday arrangements sit. A single retained asset rarely decides a year by itself, but it is very often the fact that opens the enquiry. If the house is being kept, the lease, the tenancy and the reasoning behind it are worth documenting at the time.
Can I claim Australian tax paid on my US return?
Relief for Australian tax is available through the home return, but it is claimed on the tax properly payable for the corresponding period rather than on whatever happened to be deducted from a pay run. Because the Australian year and the US year do not align, the claim usually rests on an apportionment supported by payroll records, and where the Australian return later changes the figure the home claim has to be revisited. We prepare the apportionment first, tie it to the Australian assessment when it issues, and keep both in one file so the two returns tell a single story.
Do I file in both countries the year I move to Australia?
Usually yes, and the two returns cover different slices of the same twelve months. The home country reports the part of the year up to the date residence ended, together with anything that stays taxable there afterwards. Australia reports from the date residence began. Where the two dates are not the same, income falls into a gap or gets counted twice, which is why the date is worth settling before either return is prepared. There may also be a departure computation at home, and a set of disclosures about assets you have taken with you.
My Australian salary is taxed at source — am I taxed twice?
Not on the same income, if the position is prepared properly. Australian employment income is taxed where the work is done and collected through the pay system. If you remain resident at home, the same salary is also reported there and the Australian tax is relieved by credit. If you are no longer resident at home, the salary generally stops being reported there from the date residence ended. The double tax people actually experience is nearly always an evidence problem: a credit claimed without records to support it, or a residency date that neither return agrees on.
What is the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion?
It lets a US person working abroad exclude a capped amount of foreign *earned* income — wages and self-employment profit, not investment income — from US income tax, claimed on Form 2555. You qualify through either the physical presence test or the bona fide residence test, and you must have a tax home abroad. The cap is indexed annually, so it is read off the form for the year you are filing. See Form 2555.
How do I report foreign employment income with no W-2?
A foreign employer does not issue one, and none is required. You report the wages from your own records — payslips, the employment contract, and the foreign tax assessment or return, which is the document a reviewer finds most persuasive — converted to your own currency. Keep the foreign filing with the return, because it is also the proof of foreign tax paid that supports the credit or the exclusion you are claiming. See a US return from abroad.
