organize my finances

Have pretty much found that I don’t need to do anything for taxes if I don’t want to!

Been keeping up with my weekly financial review. Still spending more than would be ideal, but some reductions, and greater mindfulness.

• Import or figure out auto-online updating of my investment changes into Quicken.
• Add retirement investments to Quicken (Janus, Fidelity).
• Rollover my 401k.

So… what I’ve come to understand is that in NZ, as an employee with an employer who has already deducted taxes from my paycheck, it’s not strictly necessary for me to file a tax return. But, it’s possible that I may get taxes back if I do so. Alternatively, I’ve been told that I should be able to get reimbursed those taxes by bringing my paystubs to Inland Revenue before I leave the country.

Inland Revenue Contact for Non-Residents:
Inland Revenue, Non-resident Centre, Private Bag 1932, Dunedin
Telephone 64 3 467 7020 between 9 am and 4.30 pm, Monday to Friday
Fax 64 3 467 7083
Email nonres@ird.govt.nz

Update: Had a chance to talk to people at Inland Revenue today, and they’ve basically confirmed the information I already had. One new piece of information is that income should only be taxed at 19.5% once it gets to $38,000 or higher; prior to that, the rate could be as low as 17%. In addition, a deduction is made for ACC (1.4%?) accident coverage.

The U.S. Embassy has a nice little overview of U.S. tax returns while living abroad. It states that in many cases, you can deduct up to $70,000 of overseas income. Also, the filing date for citizens living abroad is June 15; just include form 4868 in your filing. The exchange rate for 2006: NZ$ to US$ = .6492.

But, considering that I was unemployed for most of 2006, it doesn’t look like I even need to file U.S. or California taxes; the required filing kicks in at $8,450 and $13,713, respectively, barring a few other niggling exceptions.

Since December, I’ve been tracking my NZ spending using the aforementioned gnucash. Each week, I summarize my income and spending. Around the beginning of the year, I took a look at how I was spending my money, and set some goals for areas to reduce spending. I also set some modest goals for how much income I want to bring in. Maybe I should aim higher… like a million dollars.

Arrr… and now related to this, I need to figure out what happens with taxes in two countries given that I’m living abroad.

Shocked to find that Quicken for Mac only supports US and Canadian currency, I’m trying out gnucash for my finances in NZ. Just transferred all my paper spending scribbles accumulated in the time I’ve been here. Since the beginning of this month, for the most part I’ve been using my NZ account rather than my credit card for purchases here, so I can more easily track my earning to spending.