amend prior 1116s, revoke prior earned income exclusions?
Moderator: Mark T Serbinski CA CPA
amend prior 1116s, revoke prior earned income exclusions?
It appears that the much needed spam cleanup inadvertently removed my thread, so I re-post my concerns. Having mainly used form 2555 and if necessary form 1116 to reduce my US income tax liability to 0 while an employed resident of Canada, I would now like to go back and generate more foreign tax credit carryforward now that I am retired and living permanently in the USA. I should be able to amend my 2013 and later returns, but what about prior returns? The time constraints seem to be contradictory. IRS says 1116 foreign tax credit can be carried forward 10 years, but in order to amend these I would have to file 1040X which 'generally' (the word IRS uses) needs to be filed within 3 years. Moreover, it would probably be advantageous for me to revoke the earned income exclusion for 2006 onwards, and use only 1116. The 3 year amending requirement would seem to not allow this, but, in publication 54, it says that you can revoke the exclusion for any year. All very complicated, I know, but hoping that someone can give some guidelines, which might include the advice to not bother with it.
