Regarding the deduction for a home office:  I am no expert, but if I was going to use that deduction I would fi4st investigate what impact that could have on taxation of the principle residence.  

Every county has a property lookup site for taxation purposes.

I tried to put the phone number here, but BP doesn't allow phone numbers in posts, so go to www.irs.gov and look up the number for business taxation and speak with a representative.  

Some points: Cost of Forming a Corp, Taxation, Reporting, (lots more paperwork), lots more taxes, and did I mention lots more paperwork?

This means that if someone is a general partner in two or more limited partnerships, and .one partnership fails and creates a liability, the general partner's creditors can seek to attach all of his interests in all of his limited partnerships.A limited partnership has pass-through taxation, (See IRS Page) meaning that the income or loss created by the syndication passes through to the individual partners for use on their respective tax returns.A limited liability company, or LLC, is a combination of a corporation and a partnership.The term "limited liability" refers to the fact that like a corporation, the LLC limits personal liability to each of the parties involved, so that members cannot lose more money than they contributed.Personal assets can never be touched.Like limited partnerships, LLCs s allow each party to buy units in a property according to the funds he has available.Moreover, members benefit from pass-through taxation.The corporation is a state-chartered business or organization formed by one or more people, and having rights and liabilities separate from those of the individuals involved.Like the members of the LLC, the members of a corporation are generally not liable for the corporation's debts.Therefore, while the assets of the company may be seized and sold, the assets of the investors can't be touched.However, the corporation differs from the LLC and limited partnership in that it can sell shares of easily transferable stock.Not all corporations are alike, however,.The S-corporation has pass-through taxation, but the C-corporation is a separate taxable entity, meaning that the profits and losses are taxed directly to the corporation at a corporate income rate.

Because your friend didn't come shot someone with competant knowledge of real estate and taxation. 

I have recently moved out of the US and working abroad as an expatriate - but now I am getting paid for my work in the local (non-US) currency/bank.I would still have my permanent resident status in the US and tax returns (I have an accountant helping with my taxes relating to how the US handles taxation for expatriates), but I would obviously be missing my (US-based) pay stubs, and my US Bank statements would show chunks of money being transferred in (that I would be doing from my international bank where I am receiving my salary).I was just wondering if getting a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage in the US was still possible, and if there were any tricks/pointers that I need to know about?

Will get with our current CPA who does our business taxes and see if she is proficient in real,estate taxation and go from there since she know the rest of our finances!

Individuals who have more than one Roth IRA must aggregate the assets in all of their Roth IRAs to determine the taxation of their distributions.

this thing of the SSN and ITIN is becoming clearer to me and taxation dates were also part of my concern.