T4E and rental income help on 2555/1040

econerly · Post by **econerly** » Fri Apr 19, 2013 6:25 pm

Hi,

I'm a dual US-Canadian citizen, living and working in Canada with Canadian spouse and children (no SSNs). I have income from my regular employment, rental income (2 properties) and maternity (Employment Insurance) benefits. My earned income is less than $95k, so I plan on using f2555 to exclude my regular wages and rental income.

1. Where do I report my EI income? If it's not included in the earned income, does this mean I have to pay US tax on it (only $5k)?
2. On our Canadian taxes, my husband claims one rental property on his return and I claim the other on mine. Can I do the same for my US taxes, and only claim one, or do I have to claim both? (both our names are on the property title, and rent from both properties goes into a joint chequing account)

Thank you very much in advance!

nelsona · Post by **nelsona** » Fri Apr 19, 2013 8:39 pm

You should be jointly reporting the rental income, in both US and Canada, so half of each property should be on your US return.
Any income that is not excludable using 2555 (and its CDn income tax), is eligible for use on form 1116. That would incluse your EI (which goes on teh Ui line of 1040) and is consodered general limit income for 1116 purposes.

You should not owe any US tax when you are done.

Zephy · Post by **Zephy** » Fri May 30, 2014 10:12 pm

[quote="nelsona"]Any income that is not excludable using 2555 (and its CDn income tax), is eligible for use on form 1116. That would incluse your EI (which goes on teh Ui line of 1040) and is consodered general limit income for 1116 purposes.

You should not owe any US tax when you are done.[/quote]

I know this is an older post, however, I am trying to figure out what to do. I have searched many posts and this is as close as I can come to my problem.
I am also US-Can. citizen and received EI (maternity benefits) last year and also received some money for wages (Dec. 2013). My husband is Canadian and we have one child (born in Canada). I have not lived in the US since 1975. (18months old).
You noted that I should not owe any US tax. Just wondering if that would be the case for everyone. I keep trying to fill in 1116 and based on everything (claiming daughter only) I still owe 680 in taxes. This seems hard to swallow since I have never worked in the US and I am owing the taxes on my maternity leave. If I worked instead of maternity leave, I would be able to use all my wages to counter act on the 2555-EZ. Any advice?
Thanks in advance.

nanic · Post by **nanic** » Sat May 31, 2014 11:13 am

Have you used a tax software to do your taxes? Seems to me you maybe doing a calculation error. or forgetting something. There are free software out there to do your US taxes.

Zephy · Post by **Zephy** » Sat May 31, 2014 1:55 pm

No I haven't. I find the US taxes way more difficult to understand than the Canadian taxes. I have just followed what my brother has done as he is in the same boat...but for obvious reasons, he was not on a maternity leave and didn't receive EI for it. :)
I will have to look into it.
Thanks,

DonMurphyCanada · Post by **DonMurphyCanada** » Sat May 31, 2014 2:24 pm

I highly recommend TaxAct. Very reasonably priced and works well.

Zephy · Post by **Zephy** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 9:52 pm

Thank you so much. I got it figured out. My dad is my hero. I was understanding the form incorrectly...the word "excluded" got me. I will definitely look at the tax software though. Cheers.