Foreign Tax Credit For Americans With Thai Bank Accounts

[Beer Chang]

My understanding is that the interest I receive from my Thai bank accounts is net interest, that is after the tax on the interest is paid to the Thai government.

If so, it would seem that I'm entitled to take the Foreign Tax Credit, Line 47 on my 1040.

Has anyone done this?

Now one problem is the amount of tax paid is nowhere in my passbook and trying to get the info from my bank seems like it's going to quite a chore.

[Thaimo]

I can't answer your question. I think you have to contact an enrolled accountant or even IRS for that. But as far as the documentation, how did you know how much Thai tax to pay? Didn't you receive some sort of a bill? Or if it was paid by some sort of debit from your bank account, wasn't there something that showed what the debit was for? Wouldn't that suffice as supporting documentation?

[Beer Chang]

The Thai tax is paid automatically by the banks.

My passbook interest entries shows "net interest after Thai tax" though it's just labeled as interest, not the gross interest before tax.

[Thaimo]

Do you have online banking? Sometimes you can get more detailed documentation when looking at your account history.

You mentioned that you anticipate difficulty getting the information from the bank. What happens when you try?