U.S. Expatriate Taxes In Hong Kong

Hong Kong is among the most popular destinations for American expats, but how does living there affect their U.S. expat taxes? As an economic hub of China and South East Asia, Hong Kong is respected as one of the most important cities in the world. Living in Hong Kong as an American, you will surely think about your home country now and again, and rest assured that it has not forgotten you, especially when it comes time to file U.S. expat taxes.

Protax is the world’s leading U.S. individual international tax firm, specializing in the delivery of world class professional services to U.S. Expatriates.

Please visit our Country Tax Resource Guide for Filing Taxes as an American Living in Hong Kong.

U.S. Expat Taxes in Hong Kong

U.S. citizens and U.S. green card holders (resident aliens) have unique filing obligations, unlike the citizens of other tax jurisdictions. The U.S. imposes income taxation based upon citizenship, not based on tax residency and U.S. resident aliens are taxable on worldwide income for their lifetime unless they expatriate completely.

U.S. citizens and U.S. green card holders living and working outside the United States are required to file a U.S. tax return annually and report their worldwide income if they continue to meet the annually indexed minimum tax filing threshold amounts, consisting of the standard deduction and exemption.

Residing and working outside of the United States may permit the application of special tax laws and regulations when certain qualifications are met, permitting the offset of U.S. tax obligations in part or in their entirety. These rights of offsets are the result of the integration between the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE), Housing Exclusion (HE) and/ or Housing Deduction (HD) available on Form 2555 – Foreign Earned Income and Foreign Tax Credits (FTC) available on Form 1116 – Foreign Tax Credit. The Foreign Tax Credit on Form 1116 may be considered if the foreign country has a foreign income tax.

At Protax Consulting Services, our primary goal and objective is to use these interplay of mechanisms – the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE), Housing Exclusion (HE) and/ or Housing Deduction (HD) –in combination to wipe out any U.S. income tax.

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