Dear TurboTax community,
My wife and I will be tax residents for tax purposes in both the US (substantial presence test) and Ireland (183 day presence test) in 2025. Ireland and the US have a double tax agreement (DTA) with residency tie breaker rules, under which our Irish tax residency will prevail. My question is this: do these tie breaker rules apply automatically, i.e. whether or not the DTA is actually invoked to resolve double tax events, or do they only apply if the DTA is invoked?
The first interpretation seems unlikely to me given that it would override domestic residency rules even in the absence of any double tax event. In fact, the DTA and its technical explanation seem to suggest that its residency definition only applies for the purpose of interpreting and using the DTA, but I'm not a tax lawyer. If the second interpretation is correct, will the tie breaker rules override domestic residency rules even for non-doubly taxed income (i.e. compel us to file as non-residents in the US), or only for the purpose of resolving double tax events, leaving our US and Irish residency status unchanged otherwise?
