Originally Posted by ubermich
What was so wrong with what I said? I failed to mention the up to 80K thing, but the 330 out of a year thing is only for the foreign earned income exclusion, and there is a certain tax shelter that can be set up that can protect your entire income if you don't come back to the States for at least two years. As I mentioned, I don't know the details, but I worked for a tax lawyer who set this up for his clients a couple times.
There are lots of "Tax Shelters", most of them are illegal. You can't get around reporting your income to the IRS legally. Talk to the Saudia pilots that tried, they will tell you how NOT worth it such things are.
I make over $100,000 per year and my effective tax rate is around 5%. It's not much to sleep peacefully at night and not have to worry about the IRS auditing me.
TP