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The foreign housing exclusion goes hand-in-hand with the foreign earned income exclusion. According to section 911(a) of the federal tax code, a qualified individual under either the bona fide residence test or the physical presence test will be able to exclude from the gross income the housing amount in a foreign country provided for by the employer. Note that "provided for by the employer" does not require that the employer actually procure the housing. If the housing is paid for out of wages paid by the employer, this will meet the test. However, housing expenses in excess of the wages or earnings from self-employment would not qualify. The tax code defines the “housing amount” as the total of all qualified housing expenses less the “base housing amount.” As a result, it is then important to define what is considered qualified housing expenses as well what the IRS mean by the base housing amount. == Qualification == In order to qualify, housing expenses must be reasonable expenses incurred by the expatriate or his spouse and dependents if they live together in a foreign country. An exception to this rule would be if a second foreign household is maintained for the spouse and dependents due certain adverse and unhealthful conditions such as warfare or civil unrest. As a result, qualified housing expenses for both the first and second foreign home would include the following: * The fair rental value of housing provided by employer * Utilities (except for telephone charges) * Rent * Repairs * Real and personal property insurance * Nonrefundable fees for securing a leasehold * Nondeductible occupancy taxes * Residential parking * Rental of furniture and accessories Outside of the above list, any other housing expenses are not considered qualified. In addition, the value of meals or lodging that is excluded from gross income will not be excludable for foreign housing exclusion purposes as this would be considered a double benefit. For example it would not include: * Buying property * Labor * TV or Cable Bills * Furniture * Improvements that increase the value of the property Keep in mind that you cannot include any expenses that you have excluded from gross income, there is no double benefit, in short. There is also a limit on the amount of housing expenses one can incur, usually around 30% of the FEI exclusion times the number of days in the qualifying period, usually about $27,450 a year. You can sometimes get more than this standard limit if you live in a high-cost locality, these limits can be found on Form 2555. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Foreign housing exclusion」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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