Do I have to file at home while living in Australia?
It depends on residence, not on address — except for US citizens and green-card holders, for whom the answer is yes regardless of where they live. We settle the residence question first, because every other answer follows from it.
Is there a treaty between my country and Australia?
Treaty networks change with each protocol and each multilateral-instrument position, so we confirm the treaty in force for your specific year with the issuing authority rather than relying on a published summary. Where there is none, unilateral relief and domestic law do the work instead.
I own property in Australia. Where is the rent taxed?
In Australia, because that is where the property sits. The complication is the base: gross-rent withholding takes no account of mortgage interest, tax or repairs, so a leveraged property can face tax on turnover. An election onto net profit, where it exists, is what fixes that — and it has its own timing.
Can I keep my overseas job after moving to Australia?
Often yes, but the tax position changes on the day the work starts being done in Australia. Employment income is generally taxed where the duties are performed, so once you are at a desk in Australia the income is Australian-sourced even though the employer, the payroll and the bank account are elsewhere. Australia taxes it once you are resident there, and the employer's country may carry on taxing it under its own payroll rules until somebody tells it not to. Two things need arranging early: which country's payroll withholds, and how any double withholding is unwound.
My employer still withholds tax at home, is that right?
Often it is not, and it continues by default because payroll systems follow the contract rather than the geography. Where the treaty gives Australia the taxing right over duties performed there, tax withheld by the employer's country is not a foreign tax you can simply credit; it is an over-withholding to be corrected at source or reclaimed. The correction has to be made in the employer's country, usually with evidence of where you were and when. Keep a contemporaneous record of the days worked in each country from the start, because that record is the whole of the evidence.
Does my employer have to register for payroll in Australia?
Sometimes. An employer whose worker performs duties in Australia can pick up obligations there, including withholding, superannuation and reporting, even with no office in the country. Whether it does depends on the arrangement rather than on anyone's preference. Employers who do not want to register sometimes route the engagement through a local employment provider instead, which answers the payroll question and changes the contractual one. It is better raised with the employer before the move than discovered when the first assessment arrives, because the answer can affect whether the job survives the relocation at all.
Could working from Australia create a taxable presence for my employer?
It can, and this is the risk employers care about most. A person habitually concluding contracts for a company, or playing the principal role leading to the conclusion of those contracts, can create a taxable presence for that company in the country they sit in, whatever their job title says. A support or back-office role is far less exposed than a negotiating one. The exposure turns on what you actually do rather than on how the contract describes it, so an honest description of the role is the starting point for any advice worth having.
How do short trips back to the employer's country count?
They count precisely, which is why they have to be recorded. Days spent working in the employer's country are generally taxable there even after you have left, and treaty relief for short visits depends on a combination of presence, who employs you and who ultimately bears the cost of your salary. Failing any one of those elements puts the days back into the local net. A calendar of arrivals and departures, kept as you go, settles questions that are otherwise argued from memory and boarding passes years afterwards.
Which tax year do I report my salary in?
In both, on two different calendars. The Australian income year ends mid-year while the employer's payroll almost certainly runs to the calendar year, so one year of salary lands in two Australian years. The credit or exemption claimed on each side has to be built from the underlying payslips rather than from the annual summary, because the annual summary covers the wrong period. Set the allocation up once, in a schedule that runs from payslip to both returns, and each later year becomes a repeat of the same working rather than a fresh reconstruction.
Do American citizens living abroad have to pay taxes?
American expats and green card holders need to file US returns for life, and many of them pay little or no US tax once the relief is applied — but the filing is what unlocks the relief, so the two questions have different answers. The exclusion for foreign earned income, the credit for foreign tax already paid and the treaty between the two countries between them usually leave the total at roughly the higher of the two countries' tax rather than the sum. Skip the return and none of it applies. See Americans abroad.
How does a foreign tax credit carryover work?
Credit you could not use because of the limitation does not disappear. It carries back one year and then forward, within its own category and tracked year by year, and is applied after the current year's credit — oldest first. Two things kill it in practice: no Form 1116 in the year the excess arose, so nothing was ever computed; and no foreign income in that category later, so there is no limitation to absorb it. See Form 1116.
