fdx727pilot

Uhh, if you live in HKG, you don't live in a US state. Even if you still have a house in the states, you are not living in it. If you live in a US state, how can you claim the expat exclusion? I'm confused. Don't you have to be out of the US for more than 330 days per year to get an exclusion? If so, how can you reside in a state? Does a state you used to live in tax you? Enquiring minds want to know!

BrownGirls YUM

Actually, no. That's only part of one of the tests for initially establishing the exclusion Right, you can't. I'm only suggesting that anyone who is considering bidding HKG or France fully understand how their state laws will apply to them based on their situation.
Partially, yes. I do know I need to look more closely at my particular state if this thing passes, I take leave of my senses and decide to bid it. My state does not exclude foreign earned income. At this point that particular law isn't affecting my foreign earned income as I'm not there, but I do know I need to make sure it won't if I let the company move me back to that state and then on to Hong Kong and apply their equalization shackles to my arms.

I'm just saying, everyone needs to take a close look at their state as well as their federal, not just before bidding, but also before voting, ideally.

If there's anything this LOA has shown us, it's that Scope and Tax Equalization are two subjects complicated enough to allow the company and/or the union to say a lot of stuff that we don't fully understand. We have to look at this information with a skeptical eye and straighten it out in simplified terms for us pilots(if they only had pictures to go along with this stuff.). The company is definitely not doing that for the tax issue and that should make everyone suspicious. If they were, we would have some examples of who would pay what with and without the equalization at each location.

Maybe I'm howling about nothing on the state tax thing, but it bears looking at on an individual basis.

Underdog

The tax equalization is indeed a standard practice for ex-pats. However the recipients of those practices receive much more with the tax equalization than our LOA will offer us. Companies normally provide full housing costs. In many, if not most cases, they provide leased vehicles and tuition for school(albeit with some sort of a cap). Even Fedx provides those things for its ex-pats, unless they're pilots. Ooops, the chief pilots in FDA's also receive that, in addition to the promotion and subsequent pay increase associated with that promotion. PW, the company, The MEC, BC, and yourself all claim that this is customary and standard practice. I guess it depends on what "this is" is. By the way, in their explanation of tax equalization, Fedex and PW, mention the $82,000 foreign earned income exclusion. It changed two years ago to $82,400. I'm sure it's just an oversight on their part. Surely PW knows the IRS codes and will properly apply them while preparing our returns. In the meantime, I need to get back to my panties...they're bunching up again.

AerisArmis

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Which is why so many military folks claim no tax states like Texas, Florida, Washington, Nevada....as their home of record for state tax purposes. I suspect that anyone who goes to an FDA would be well advised to claim Tennessee as their tax home. Be a piece of cake since that is where the Co say they will be based.