i can clarify and correct those points for you up here as well

the max excluded income is variable, so this year it’ll be $126,500. the cap is regulated by the irs and goes up each year.

the FEIE(foreign earned income exclusion) form is form 2555, which you fill out with your regular taxes. it’s a very simple couple of pages that you fill in the blanks with the dates you were out of the country and your total earned income for the year, usually takes me fifteen minutes.

the declaration of foreign investment you mentioned is called the FBAR, an online form that takes less than a minute to fill out If you have more than 10,000 invested overseas.

If you have more than 10,000 USD invested overseas, you have to annually declare how much and which financial institutions your savings are in via the FBAR.

as long as you take the 10 to 15 minutes to fill out the FEIE, you won’t have any problems with the IRS excluding earned income.

i have.

you want to be part of the US tax system while being “out of reach of the federal government”, two aims you should understand are incompatible.

Yes, reporting foreign income and paying taxes is exactly what keeps the US from seizing and freezing accounts.

you said you don’t want to avoid paying taxes.

If you report your accounts and investment income and pay taxes, then you’re in no danger of the US government seizing or freezing your accounts.

then all you have to do is file the FBAR and pay your taxes every year and you can invest anywhere you want, however much you want.

oh, so what did you mean by “outside the reach of the federal government” rather than tax avoidance, just foreign investment opportunities?

you can avoid paying earned income taxes altogether by living outside of the US for more than 330 days out of the fiscal year.

this is called foreign earned income exclusion.

investment income is different; investment income is not excluded by the FEIE, only earned income, so you wouldn’t be able to avoid paying investment income tax to the US unless you immigrated to to another country.