Taxpayer is on the hook for foreign earned income

The U.S. Tax Court held that a taxpayer-contractor who worked in Iraq, providing security for visiting dignitaries, wasn’t entitled to the tax code’s foreign earned income exclusion because his place of abode was the United States. To qualify, a person’s home must be a foreign country. The court also held that his former spouse was entitled to innocent spouse relief under the code, leaving him responsible for all the deficiencies relating to the improperly excluded foreign earned income. (TC Summary Op. 2017-10)