# Negative total income on 1040?



## Barbarossa026 (Jun 10, 2020)

Hi all, I'm new to this forum.

I run into a minor albeit particular issue for this year's return.

Situation: US citizen living in the Netherlands. Main source of income is salary from employment, but last year there was also a small amount of "nonemployee compensation from a sporadic activity.

Where do I enter this non-salary compensation? The instructions suggest line 8 on 1040 Schedule 1. But that line is already used for Form 2555.

Let me show an examples of my situation (not actual numbers, but for the sake of clarification  :

Form 2555 FEIE:
* line 19 (wages) = 50,000
* line 23 (other foreign earned income) = 1,250

hence total FEIE = 51,250

I then put this number in () in Schedule 1, line 8 Other income = (51,250)

So the situation on Form 1040 is now:
* line 1 (wages) = 50,000
* line 7a (from Schedule 1) = (51,250)

resulting in a negative total income of (1,250) on line 7b, and also AGI being negative (1,250) on line 8b

My question is: is this correct? Can total income on line 7b be a negative number?


Or should I instead combine two items on line 8 in Schedule 1 and show (50,000) with a comment like:
"Form 2555 & nonemployee compensation sporadic activity".?


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