This caught my eye.
{{ In 2022, we traveled so much that I was outside the US for 11 months, thereby qualifying as a US nonresident. This meant I could sell all my stocks, without paying US capital-gains taxes. }}
Is that only because he’s here on a Green Card, or can patriotic, native-born Americans get in on that kind of tax avoidance action? {{ LOL }}
intercst
He doesn’t have a green card. The story says he did qualified as a non-resident alien, so he apparently failed both the green card test and the substantial presence test, as described in this tax topic Topic no. 851, Resident and nonresident aliens | Internal Revenue Service (irs.gov)
Non-resident aliens are taxed a flat 30% on US capital gains, but only when they are present in the country for more than 183 days in tax year. They may be subject to taxes on US capital gains from their home country.
US citizens are subject to taxes on their worldwide income, no matter how many days they are present in the US during the tax year.
A US citizen who is married to a non-resident alien will generally have to file MFS, rather than MFJ, unless the non-resident alien chooses to be treated as a resident alien. So if his wife had income, she would have had to pay more in taxes since he filed as a non-resident alien. Presumably, the extra she had to pay was more than offset by the savings from not paying taxes on his capital gains.
AJ