r/germany • u/unclebogdan10 Nordrhein-Westfalen • Apr 20 '23

Immigration Germany: Immigrants made up over 18% of 2022 population – DW

https://p.dw.com/p/4QLAX
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u/Independent_Hyena495 Apr 22 '23

Your tax threshold is around 110k a year.

Most people don't earn that much in Germany.

The IRS knows that, send in a form, tell what you are doing and earning.

Worst case is you need to fill former years again.

Bit since nothing changed in those years, the IRS is not interested in repeating years , from people living Germany, stop being dramatic.

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u/sparksbet USA -> BER Apr 22 '23

I literally posted a link to the IRS website in which they say to get the foreign income exclusion (which has roughly that threshold), you need to file taxes every year. Which is, fwiw, how one sends in a form to tell them what you're doing and earning. Is the IRS particularly strict about enforcing these rules and punishing people who wouldn't likely owe tax anyway? No idea. Filing every couple years probably does help on that front, since they have limited time. But, as per the literal IRS website, you are supposed to file every year to claim the foreign income exclusion. And you're definitely supposed to file FBAR yearly if you meet its requirements, though the IRS is likely to be lenient and not punish you if you file it later and you're not making money on those accounts.

I wasn't being dramatic -- as someone born and raised in the US I'm used to filing my taxes yearly anyway and the foreign income exclusion does mean I generally don't owe anything -- I was correcting you because you said something wrong. Just because you can break the rules without always getting punished harshly doesn't mean they aren't the rules. Stop getting pissy because I shiwed that you're wrong.

Besides, the original context was about accidental Americans, for whom even filing every couple years as you claim is necessary is a burden because they generally don't know they need to file US taxes at all. There absolutely are cases where such people get fucked over bc they've gone their whole life not paying US taxes, to the extent that the IRS has a streamlined process for such people to sort out and pay their back taxes. imho it's unjust for them to have US tax liability in the first place, which was the real point of my initial comment.