foreign earned income exclusion - question, help!

[wrumug 0]

Hi,

This is the first year we are filing the tax jointly. I was still a non-resident alien in 2006, but according to the IRS if file jointly and one spouse is a U.S. citizen then we can choose to treat the non-resident spouse as a U.S. resident. And this is what we are doing now, my husband is a U.S. citizen and I will be treated as a U.S. resident for tax purpose.

Now, according to the IRS, my income, which is all foreign income should be excluded by filling out the 2555. However, it seems like this is not the case when I was working it out on TurboTax or Taxcut. Here is what I have observed, for example, my husband made $50,000/yr and during the filing the program showed that when file jointly we can get back $1000, but when we entered the foreign income that I has made, $2000. It added that $2000 with my husband's salary, total showed $52,000, and the refund we can get back dropped to $900.

I thought that the $2000, should be added to the total, but then subtracted immidately because the exclusion, and the refund should not be changed. Shouldn't this be the case? What have we done wrong?

The only things that I can think of is that maybe the travelling dates that I put in on the 2555 or the "Wage adjustment" field.

for travelling out of the foreign country, I put down all the trips that I have made to the U.S. visiting my hunsband, and I put down 0 for business day, and 0 income. For the "wage adjustment" I put down 0 too, maybe I should put down -2000 in this case?

Thank you very much for your help.

[jlivings99 0]

It should be excluded. You have probably done something in Turbo Tax incorrectly ... answering 1 question wrong can change everything ... I would sugest going through the questions on foreign income again

[tom&tata 2]

Previous post by Yodrak describe exactly what your 1040 looks like after you add the foreign income on line 7 (wage) and exclude that income using form 2555 on line 22 (other income).

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=61099

If you only see additional income only on line 7 but you do not see the same reduction on line 22, my thought would be you did not key in the right information.

[wrumug 0]

I will try it again,

thanks guys