Here's a tricky question: once you, a US citizen, establish yourself as a foreign bona fide resident (say you've lived in a foreign country and met all the requirements, for the last 10 years), can you take a vacation in the USA for more than 30 days, say 6 weeks? IRS Publication 54 and my literal reading of it says "yes". Take a look at example 1 on page 14. But the IRS, as is typical of a bureaucracy, tries to stick as close to the 30 day rule as they can (which is part of the 330 day out of 365 day rule, which is different from the bona fide foreign resident rule). As per the example above--they literally said 30 days in that example. It would have been more helpful if the example was for 45 days. What do you think? If it's close, just say so. If challenged by the IRS I will cite the literal language (I plan on taking a 45 day vacation in the US this year, and am a bona fide foreign expat from the US). RL
- posted
17 years ago