Discussion:Resident Alien working in home country

Does he have a currently valid green card?

Does he get a W-2 from the UN? I suspect that the UN has some special deal with the US govt, since their financial sources are dues from the contributing countries.

Does he a letter from the UN describing his position and relation to the UN?

Would he have a position with the UN if he moved stateside?

The last two would be more relevant for INS. The tax return are not as important as the last two above IMHO.

He is a resident alien and taxable on worldwide income each year.

I did a search for "Resident Alien Status" and got this from Wikipedia

"Under certain conditions, permanent residence status can be lost involuntarily. This includes committing a criminal act that makes a person removable from the United States. A person might also be found to have abandoned their status if he or she moves to another country to live there permanently, stays outside the USA for more than 365 days (without getting a re-entry permit before leaving)[30], or does not file an income tax return. Permanent resident status can also be lost if it is found that the application or grounds for obtaining permanent residence was fraudulent. The failure to renew the permanent resident card does not result in the loss of status, except in the case of conditional permanent residents as noted above..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_residence_(United_States)

If he is a resident alien by virtue of the green card test, then he has to report world-wide income even when he's in his native home country working for the UN, but he might also qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion and/or the foreign tax credit.

The situation I'm familiar with is a UK national with a green card who's working for a US company in England and gets paid in Pound Sterling. He pays income taxes to the UK. He comes to the US every year to maintain his intent to be a permanent resident. He files his US taxes every year and excludes most of it under the foreign earned income exclusion and claims the foreign tax credit on the excess.

Because he's working in his own country now and it sounds like for a number of years. Since he's been out so long I suspect that he is non-resident alien and his card may have expired.

Also I suspect that he would love to have it US taxable to facilitate immigration - a valid SSN for work in the US would be very nice.

The UN is not a US organization or business. The UN Headquarters is hosted by NYC/NY/USA. The treaties and legal paperwork to set this up would sink the Titanic. Every country on the planet sending folks is making sure their employees dont pay taxes here. And even less so when working at home. Bet your silver shillings and gold guineas on it.

Most of these fellers don't want to give up a cushy job at the U.N. to become a U.S. citizen, when they can have fun pretending to solve the world's problems, and fly home for the local cuisine.

Here's what R2 said: Wages paid to an employee of the United Nations are not taxable for US tax purposes if the employee is not a citizen of the United States, or is a citizen of the Republic of the Philippines. Sec. 893.

You said the man was a permanent resident, which means he's not a citizen, so what R2 says should apply.