I have a very shallow knowledge of the “Under 100k” exception for filing taxes and more or less thought I wouldn’t need to care because I would never make or have that much money in a given year. So I left it alone. For years.
Well, in my older age and an amass of grey bleeding through black, I thought I should be responsible and get life insurance. Make sure my Ps and Qs are squared so my loved ones here won’t be burdened if Death comes knocking.
But the Life Insurance plan requires me to submit my SSN to comply with FATCA guidelines and then the gears started turning. If I apply and the IRS sees I havent filed in fifteen years and I am penalized or worse, what good is it to my loved ones?
So I guess my questions are:
Know any good accountants and can vouge for anyone who can navigate through this as painlessly as possible?
Any stories from those who have gone through this?
4 comments
15 years is a long time but plenty of expats catch up on their taxes after years of leaving it alone. You’ll probably need to pay quite a bit just to pay the accountant that will sort it out for you and I guess there could be fines. But it’s been done before I’m sure, I’d say just bite the bullet and do it.
I know expat tax professionals helps with catching up, hut not sure of their fees or how good they are, since I just use them for standard annual tax returns.
Good luck! Im sure you’ll sort it out!
If you haven’t already, I’d highly recommend posting your dilemma here as well:
/r/JapanFinance
I did mine after 20+ years. No problems, just followed the streamlined procedure with 3 back years and six years of bank info. I think you’ll still get Covid relief checks to more than cover any fees you might incur if you use an accountant
There’s a whole finance in Japan subreddit that for sure has lots of info for you. But if you are a salaried employee and not self employed or a business owner, the compliance thing is actually pretty straightforward. Google – overseas tax payer IRS streamlined compliance – and you’ll get the info and forms. If you are self employed or own a business or have investments it’s probably more complicated and worth paying someone to do, but having none of those obstacles I filed the streamlined stuff myself and it wasn’t too painful (basically three years of back taxes plus forms explaining that I messed up unintentionally, same as what you are saying here), and it’s been a few years and no one has come after me so I figure it’s settled.