u/usexpatinbathgate

So I’ve posted before about the tax position I’m in. Dual US/UK citizen with a US military retirement and a US civil service salary that ended last year (31 Dec) as I was part of the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP). Should start collecting my US civil service pension soon. So the long and the short of it is apparently since I am a US/UK citizen living in Scotland, both my retirement pay and US civil service pay are primarily taxable by the UK and I have to claim the FTC from the US. My question is if I’ve already paid the tax to the US and the FTC is non-refundable, what good is it? I’ve read that you can carry it forward for ten years but again, if the taxes are already paid, why bother? What am I missing? And OBTW, the US/UK tax treaty has a savings clause that either country can use that basically says “doesn’t matter what the treaty says, we’ll tax you the way we want”. Thanks in advance for any help/insights.

Hello everyone. I am a dual US/UK citizen with basically only US income (2 government retirements and some bank accounts). Moved back to Scotland a little over a year ago after half a century of being gone and have to do a self assessment tax return (SATR). Why it’s called a SELF assessment is misleading - it’s not like you can really do it by yourself. Is there anyone else in roughly the same boat who has any tips on the SATR? I get asked if I regret moving back here and I am now beginning to think that yeah, I should’ve just stayed in the US. Or I should’ve done some more investigating before moving here and maybe I would’ve chose not to. But that’s all water under the proverbial bridge now - gotta deal with this tax stuff.