I paid my taxes!!!
I paid my taxes!!!
Well, not yet.
Filled out my US 1040 and 2555 forms and sent them on the 14th of April. One day before they’re due.
Pretty good timing I feel.
The 1040, as those of you from the US know, is the standard US tax form.
The 2555 is different.
For those of us living and working abroad this is the other form that we must fill in. It calculates for you the foreign earned income exclusion.
It’s a very simple form, fill it in, attach to the 1040 and so long as you earned less than 130.000 dollars in 2025 (the amount goes up a couple of thousand dollars a year) you do not have to pay US taxes on your income.
But we do have to file and anything over 130.000 dollars earned in 2025 is taxed according to US tax law.
This is unique.
According to the internet (so take this info with a big grain of salt) only a couple of other countries in the world do this. Primarily Eritrea and North Korea. Good company to be in. Most other countries do not tax you on income earned abroad.
Seeing as how there are several million of us, US citizens working abroad and serving as ambassadors in that respect I feel this is stupid. I will save more of that rant for one of my next book projects entitled “Don’t Be Stupid : The Uncle Rich Theory of Economics”.
Filing those yearly taxes however does mean that the IRS has my address. Which meant that during Covid I did receive not one, but two Covid/Trump checks worth 1.500 dollars each. The first one I deposited in my Dutch bank account. That was lucky, ING bank was the only Dutch bank accepting US checks at the time, in fact 2020 was the last year they did so. My bankruptcy trustee at the time said that I could keep that money, which was cool, it fed me for a few months.
The 2nd Covid check arrived a year or so later, after ING stopped accepting them for deposit. That was okay, my parents at the time were retired and living in Las Vegas so I cashed it at a casino there. The people working at the casino said that they were seeing this quite often and made sure to direct me towards the sports book, so that was money well spent as you may guess.
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Got off track there for a second, let me get back to the first sentence I wrote here, “I paid my taxes”.
I also filled out, in addition to my US tax forms but the Dutch ones as well. For the first time since 2019, pre Covid, pre bankruptcy pre everything they weren’t garnishing my wages. Which meant that last year I was able to work more and actually keep the money.
That means that I actually have to pay taxes in the Netherlands this year!!!
I earned enough money and was able to keep it so I expect my blue envelope to show up any day now.
Dutch taxes are delivered in blue envelopes.
I once saw someone on Halloween dressed up as a giant, blue, Dutch tax envelope.
Scariest thing out on the streets that night.
Lots of double takes from people, free drinks from bartenders and people screaming as they ran away.
Best costume ever.
Funny as hell.
But back to my point.
I’ve made it through.
I’m a tax paying individual again.
And ever since I hit my head I’ve been using the Dutch health care system at least once every three months.
So not only am I paying taxes.
I’m getting something for them.
That is a first.
