Do I have to file at home while living in Netherlands?
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 Netherlands 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 Netherlands?
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 Netherlands. 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 Netherlands offers one, is normally the first thing to check. Your home country taxes the same rent and credits what was paid.
When exactly do I become resident again after leaving the Netherlands?
On the day your ties are genuinely re-established, which is a question of fact rather than a date you nominate. Taking up a home, the family arriving, a local employment starting and the ordinary apparatus of daily life being restored all point to the same moment, and usually they cluster within a few weeks of each other. Where they do not, because the family arrives ahead of you or the house is not ready, the gap needs explaining and evidencing. The date matters because it divides the year into a period taxed on worldwide income and a period taxed only on what arises locally.
Do my assets get a new cost base when I move back?
In broad terms yes, and this is one of the more valuable consequences of the move. A person becoming resident is generally treated as having acquired most property at its market value on that day, so growth that accrued while you were living in the Netherlands is not captured when you eventually sell. The value has to be capable of proof later, which means fixing it now. We take contemporaneous valuations of the assets that matter, record the basis used, and keep them with the residence file, because a number produced years after the event is the one that gets challenged.
What happens to my Dutch pension when I move back home?
Three separate questions sit behind that one, and running them together is what causes trouble. There is how the pot is treated while it continues to grow, whether anything happens to it by reason of the move itself, and which country taxes payments when they are eventually drawn. The scheme documents answer the first two, a treaty in force for your year usually bears on the third, and elections that exist often have deadlines tied to the move. We read the scheme rules before the departure date rather than after, because several of the options close once you have left.
Do I file a part-year return in the year I move back?
Usually the year is split rather than treated as one thing. For the part of the year before residence resumes, your home country generally taxes only income arising there; afterwards it taxes worldwide income. The Netherlands does its own version of the same exercise for the period you were there. The difficulty is not the principle but the seams, where a payment lands on one side of the line and the work that earned it on the other. We allocate by the period the income was earned, document the basis, and make sure both returns describe the same year in the same way.
Will I be taxed twice in the year I return home?
You may be taxed by both countries on some income in that year, but being taxed twice on the same income is usually avoidable, and it is the relief mechanics rather than the principle that go wrong. Relief depends on the tax actually paid, on the income being matched to the right period, and on the Dutch assessment reaching its final form rather than sitting provisional. Where an assessment is still provisional when the home return is due, the credit claimed will need revisiting. We track the Dutch side through to finality and adjust the home position, rather than filing once and leaving it.
Should I close my Dutch bank accounts before I move back?
There is rarely a tax reason to close them, and sometimes a practical reason to keep one open while the final assessment and any repayment come through. What changes is reporting. Once residence resumes, accounts and assets held abroad come within your home country's foreign reporting, which is triggered by holding them and not by income arising. US persons report accounts on an FBAR; Canadian residents report specified foreign property on the T1135 where the income test is met. Make the inventory as part of the move, while you still remember every account, rather than in the following filing season.
How do I file US taxes when I am married to a foreign spouse?
Three routes. File separately, listing your spouse as a non-resident alien — which needs either an identification number for them or the accepted notation where none exists. Elect to treat them as a resident and file jointly, gaining the joint brackets and accepting their worldwide income. Or file as head of household if you have a qualifying dependant, which some Americans abroad can do while married. The right answer turns on their income and their assets. See a US person with a non-resident spouse.
What is the US exit tax?
A charge that applies when a US citizen renounces or a long-term permanent resident gives up their status and meets one of the covered-expatriate tests — an income test, a net-worth test, or a failure to certify five years of compliance. A covered expatriate is treated as having sold worldwide assets on the day before expatriation, and Form 8854 is what reports the position. The tests turn on figures that are indexed, so they are read for the year of expatriation. See Form 8854.
