Help. Expat. I have not been able to file taxes since 2010.

[callmeRoy]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Florida

Help. Expat. I have not been able to file taxes since 2010.

Please excuse my brief explanation. I had my whole situation laid out but this forum logged me out without letting me know and when I hit submit I lost everything I had written (not cool).

Anyways to make a long story short: I'm an expat originating from Florida, currently living in Brazil with my wife since 2009. For reasons that I already wrote but got deleted I haven't been able to file my taxes since 2010. I have been unemployed since then for reasons which I am not going to write again right now, but ask me if need to know.
So income has been much less than $6000 a year.

Question:
Am I in trouble with the IRS?

 

[LdiJ]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Florida

Help. Expat. I have not been able to file taxes since 2010.

Please excuse my brief explanation. I had my whole situation laid out but this forum logged me out without letting me know and when I hit submit I lost everything I had written (not cool).

Anyways to make a long story short: I'm an expat originating from Florida, currently living in Brazil with my wife since 2009. For reasons that I already wrote but got deleted I haven't been able to file my taxes since 2010. I have been unemployed since then for reasons which I am not going to write again right now, but ask me if need to know.
So income has been much less than $6000 a year.

Question:
Am I in trouble with the IRS?

Possibly. Do you own any foreign investments or have any foreign bank accounts? If so, what are the amounts of the investments and how much cash would you have in bank accounts, at any particular moment?

 

[callmeRoy]

I haven't been able to open any bank accounts. It's a long story but my earnings have been barely enough to scrape for a living here in Brazil and banks charge here if citizens do not have a RG which is a work card, which, I have not been able to aquire. Again long story.

I don't have any investments. Whatever little money I make here goes to the essentials, food, water, electric.

How much trouble could I be in? Any suggestions would be appreciated? What should my next step be?

 

[LdiJ]

I haven't been able to open any bank accounts. It's a long story but my earnings have been barely enough to scrape for a living here in Brazil and banks charge here if citizens do not have a RG which is a work card, which, I have not been able to aquire. Again long story.

I don't have any investments. Whatever little money I make here goes to the essentials, food, water, electric.

How much trouble could I be in? Any suggestions would be appreciated? What should my next step be?

I do not think that you are in any trouble at all. You do not have enough income to trigger a filing requirement. If you also have no foreign investments or bank accounts then you are not in any trouble for not reporting those either.

 

[adjusterjack]

How much trouble could I be in? Any suggestions would be appreciated? What should my next step be?

I agree that you probably don't have enough income to necessitate filing a return.

But if you want to feel more comfortable about it, read Publication 17 from the IRS.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p17.pdf

There's a section toward the front that addresses who needs to file a return.

 

[Silverplum]

Please excuse my brief explanation. I had my whole situation laid out but this forum logged me out without letting me know and when I hit submit I lost everything I had written (not cool).

I flove the complaint included with the plea for help.

 

[callmeRoy]

Apologies

I wasn't complaining about anybody in particular. Just about the websites auto-log function. I did not think anybody would take offense to that but if you did...

Please excuse me, not my intention. I can see how that can come off as a bit entitled. However, my situation is a little bit more complicated. But trust me you would be annoyed too if you had to write for about half an hour your whole situation on a post on this forum and then realized that it all vanished because the site auto-logged you off. In any event I'm over it. Not a big deal.

What I was explaining on my first attempt was that my reasons for being worried now are because just yesterday I learned from my wife that my father in-law included me in his will. He is very old right now and he apparently wanted to document everything. The problem is that it's very expensive to change wills here. I don't know why, I just learned this today. It costs 30,000 reais which is like $10,000 US. Anyways, he literally can't take me off the will and my wife and I stand to inherit some property now which is not at all the way we intended it to happen. I was expecting her to inherit, so when she told me I kinda panicked and still am.

What should I do? Does inheriting property along with my wife count as an investment overseas? We still haven't inherited anything and hopefully my father in-law will be with us for a lot longer but as I already said, he is very old and quite weak which has me worried. Like really worried.

 

[LdiJ]

I wasn't complaining about anybody in particular. Just about the websites auto-log function. I did not think anybody would take offense to that but if you did...

Please excuse me, not my intention. I can see how that can come off as a bit entitled. However, my situation is a little bit more complicated. But trust me you would be annoyed too if you had to write for about half an hour your whole situation on a post on this forum and then realized that it all vanished because the site auto-logged you off. In any event I'm over it. Not a big deal.

What I was explaining on my first attempt was that my reasons for being worried now are because just yesterday I learned from my wife that my father in-law included me in his will. He is very old right now and he apparently wanted to document everything. The problem is that it's very expensive to change wills here. I don't know why, I just learned this today. It costs 30,000 reais which is like $10,000 US. Anyways, he literally can't take me off the will and my wife and I stand to inherit some property now which is not at all the way we intended it to happen. I was expecting her to inherit, so when she told me I kinda panicked and still am.

What should I do? Does inheriting property along with my wife count as an investment overseas? We still haven't inherited anything and hopefully my father in-law will be with us for a lot longer but as I already said, he is very old and quite weak which has me worried. Like really worried.

You should not be worried. If and when you actually inherit, then you might need to file a tax return, or other forms, depending on the nature of the inheritance. However, until that happens, you are fine, and there is no need to worry about it now.

 

[callmeRoy]

I do not think that you are in any trouble at all. You do not have enough income to trigger a filing requirement. If you also have no foreign investments or bank accounts then you are not in any trouble for not reporting those either.

Thank you so much for the input. I'm feeling a little bit better. now.