When did what's on a website become authority?
Not a real good question, because it doesn’t matter if it’s authority or not. And nobody said it was. It simply reflects the NCDOR’s correct reading of the law. We’re not taking the credit “just because” the website says too, we’re taking it because the statute (i.e. the authority) does.
I'm aware of what's on the website.
Then it’s even more incredible that you’re still a denier.
As nicely as I can put it, your argument is pathetic. I don’t even know where to start…but I’ll try:
It goes like this: Taxpayer pays foreign taxes. Taxpayer claims a federal foreign tax credit. Despite the fact that there’s an entire statute in NC that says foreign taxes are creditable at the NC level, we don’t get a credit in NC because we took one at the federal level. This would hold true whether or not we filed a return in the foreign jurisdiction. Such a position would force your client, if eligible and if applicable, to claim the foreign earned income exclusion. And then you’d probably say, “Now client, we can claim a credit at the NC level because we took no federal credit.” Great idea. Let’s take a credit at the NC level on income that wasn’t taxed in NC in the first place. I think you’d have a little problem with that (you’d actually end up with no NC credit at all). In the end, we have a statute that specifically references foreign countries, but if he’s your client, he can’t claim the credit in NC [if he claimed the federal credit] and he can’t claim the credit in NC [if he took the FEIE]. Then we wonder why the statute is even on the books…Oh I know, it’s on the books because it means something different than what you think.