# Form 8854



## Waldemar22

HI, just a question about irs form 8854. 
part IV section A, line one.

Does this mean that if I have no tax obligations to the IRS after tax credits (or FEIE) than I put zero in each applicable space? Or is it an avg of my last 5 years of income? This is not so clear. There is of course nothing about this in the instructions that I could find.

Thanks for the help.


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## Bevdeforges

If you had no tax obligations in each of the five years they are asking for, put 0 in the spaces. They say nothing about averaging - they want your actual tax liability for each of the 5 years.
Cheers,
Bev


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## Waldemar22

Bevdeforges said:


> If you had no tax obligations in each of the five years they are asking for, put 0 in the spaces. They say nothing about averaging - they want your actual tax liability for each of the 5 years.
> Cheers,
> Bev


This is what I figured but wasn´t sure. One would have to earn a whole lot of money in order to have to owe the irs at least $140k in taxes. This is not me. 

I have another nut to crack here. 
Part V #7 "pensions for services performed outside the US", 
would this be my Norwegian state pension? If so how do I figure the mark to market value?
This pension is akin to social security in the states except that it actually is a liveable pension. I can not cash it in now even if I wanted to . I have paid into it through taxes every year and if I stay here until I retire (in at least 20 years) only then am I entitled to this. If I were to leave now Norway now, I would be entitled to something but much less than if I stay for 30 years.
I have no idea how to figure this out, or even if this is neccessary to report in this matter. Tax treaty ?

This pension is not like an RRSP or 401k in that I have very little control of these funds. 

Does this make sense?


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## Bevdeforges

Oh that's nice - the instructions specifically don't say a word about line 7. 

Elsewhere (that is, other forms), in the reporting of financial information for those resident overseas, they specifically say NOT to report national retirement plans that function like US social security. I'd go with that here - and if they have questions, they'll ask later. I think you can reasonably argue that the state pension plan has no current fair market value, because you have no idea what the value will be of your benefit until you get to the point you qualify for it.
Cheers,
Bev


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## Waldemar22

Bevdeforges said:


> Oh that's nice - the instructions specifically don't say a word about line 7.
> 
> Elsewhere (that is, other forms), in the reporting of financial information for those resident overseas, they specifically say NOT to report national retirement plans that function like US social security. I'd go with that here - and if they have questions, they'll ask later. I think you can reasonably argue that the state pension plan has no current fair market value, because you have no idea what the value will be of your benefit until you get to the point you qualify for it.
> Cheers,
> Bev


This sounds good. I´ll buy that until I hear differently, 

Have a nice weekend.


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## CanadianHoosier

Having just spent about 4 hours over the past week putting mine together, I concur with Bev.


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## WSquared

I have a related question here (.../expats/expat-tax/103314-form-8854-a.html) if anybody knows the answer. thanks, William


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