Since he is not covered by an employer plan, there is not income limitation for the TIRA deduction, so he can get a $5K deduction. http://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/IRA ... ion-Limits


Edit: Should have read the rest of the thread before posting. Already been covered.

It seems to me that if I were in your shoes I would be looking for a top-quality tax professional. There are a lot of US citizens who work overseas; it isn't that unusual. But with your high salary I would think there are definitely some "ins and outs" in the tax code that WE would be unaware of, that you could take advantage of IF you had the advice of someone who specialized in tax prep for overseas residents. Are there also some state of domicile issues to consider (some states tax foreign earnings, perhaps)? - just something to think about.

Now, where you would find such an individual, that's something else. I'd probably start multiple lines of inquiry: my employer, my friends who might know someone else from the US who has the same problem and solved it, as well as (I just Googled for this) a couple of the association groups for tax preparers. Be sure to check out the FAQs on the webpage of the National Association of Tax Consultants; it seems to have some helpful tips. Another org is the National Association of Tax Professionals (NATP); they seem to be competing groups (common, as you know, when it comes to $$$) so one or both might dig up some useful leads for you.

Good luck to you, and yes, you might want to be saving just a little more of your income - more like 22-25%. You're only young once, but when you get older sometimes it feels like it's been going on forever, LOL!

Doesn't your cell phone have a clock on it?

Mine does. I still wear a watch, though not one expensive enough for me to consider an investment.

Yeah but he's young & wants to be ballin'.

Yeah but he's young & wants to be ballin'.[/quote]

I always bristle when I hear someone call a watch, a piece of furniture, a car, or even a new set of golf clubs an "investment." But I suspect the OP knew he was being funny using that term.

With a salary of a quarter million a year and given the crowd he runs with, a fancy watch might not be so frivolous. Who knows, it might actually be an investment in the sense that it gets him acceptance that leads to contacts that improve his earnings.

But, back on topic, I think jaiko has a point. A highly paid ex-pat is hardly like the rest of us. Professional advice might turn up some legal opportunities not available to many people. And at the very least, paying for a few hours of a pro's time just might be a better investment than that watch!

Between my wife and I we make somewhere near what the OP makes. It is very frustrating to be phased out of so many deductions and so forth. Even though I get the point about Roth IRAs and TIRAs that everyone is making, in our case we have been income-limited out of these vehicles for almost 20 years so that now we have these little old accounts from long ago sitting around that they almost literally are more hassle than they are worth.

In the private equity world there are tricks played. Read up on Romney's finances and how he got hundred of millions into IRAs! There are legal things that can be done perhaps. In my personal research I have found there are very few legals games to be played for us but the OP is in a different situation. (And we do use a tax professional who has shot down several of my own ideas over the years)