Taxes (April is the cruelest month :-)

[east carolina]

I haven't lived in the US for 5 years. I no longer have a bank account there, I own no property there, the last time I worked there and filed taxes was 5 years ago. I was recently told by another expat here that I have to file my US taxes and declare that I made 0 dollars in the US last year. Do any of you know if this is true and do you therefore file in the US even if you do not make any money there? I live in the Czech Republic and know for a fact that Czech citizens living abroad and working abroad do not have to file Czech taxes, but of course tax laws vary from country to country.

[EVC]

Do you make any money at all last year? If so, then you DO need to file, even if the income was not in the US. You must fill out a separate form (in addition to the 1040) called something like "Foreign Earned Income Adjustment." Unless you made A LOT of money, you won't actually owe any taxes on it, but you do need to report it.

And, yes, when I was expat, I filed US taxes every year, even though none of my income was in the US.

[MetasMom]

While living outside the U.S., I filed taxes here. It's very simple: You file the usual form 1040 and additionally the above mentioned "Foreign Earned Income Exclusion", that is form 2555-EZ. With an income under I believe 85.700$ per year, you need not pay income tax in the U.S.

[east carolina]

Thanks for the info, mamas. I definitely made below that amount every year I lived abroad. Oh brother, now I am going to have to back file. I checked out the irs website, I'm still going through it. I know someone here who had to back file, too, so I know it can be done, it's just going to be a big hassle. Thank god for EZ forms, I wish the Czech Republic had them, filing taxes here is a nightmare. A couple of years ago, the forms the government published were so difficult to understand that they had to fire the team that wrote them!