Hi there, my husband and I moved permanently out of the US to Canada. My husband still has about 50k of loans which we currently are on the 10-year repayment plan for. I am about to go on maternity leave here so our income in Canada will be quite reduced and this monthly payment will stretch our budget quite a bit. I'm wondering what people think about switching to an IDR with the foreign income exclusion? We do not plan to move back to the States (although we obviously can't predict exactly what the future holds). Other questions would be – do they count both of our incomes with the foreign-exclusion if we file jointly? And my understanding is after 25 years the loans get forgiven – when does that 25 years start? Thanks for the advice 🙂
Is switching to an Income Driven Repayment plan smart if you moved out of the US?
byu/MathematicianDry2490 inStudentLoans
Posted by MathematicianDry2490
1 Comment
Your combined AGI from your tax return is used to calculate IDR payment if you file jointly. You can mess around with free tax software to play out different scenarios.
Are these loans all federal? His forgiveness timeline would depend on when he took out his earliest loans. How long he has left depends on how long he’s been in repayment.
You can use this link to view the hidden data file used for the IDR counts. You MUST LOG IN FIRST to your studentaid.gov account and then click the link: [https://studentaid.gov/app/api/nslds/payment-counter/summary](https://studentaid.gov/app/api/nslds/payment-counter/summary)
It should look like a black page with a bunch of white text. You are looking for the parts that say “qualifyingpaymentcount”. It will appear multiple times. It’s broken down per loan and then per each payment plan. That number is your IDR count towards forgiveness.
If he had any loans before July 2014 then he would need 300 qualifying payments for IBR forgiveness. If all of his loans were taken after July 1, 2014 then he would need 240 qualifying payments for IBR forgiveness. If he eventually gets forgiveness the forgiven amount would be treated as taxable income.