Should I pay my U.S. taxes?

[benjamin]

Hey Guys,
I haven?t filed for over 20 years and have lived abroad all this time accept for visits to the U.S.
It was always a hassle to file from abroad and I fall under the 80,000 earnings so just didn't bother.

About 8 years ago while in California I stopped by the local IRS to enquire about back filing and they didn't know how to handle my case. I didn't have the time to wait for a more experienced IRS person to come up from L.A.
At first they thought there computer was down because my information was totally blank.

Anyway, I'm married now and with a child and worried if we visit someday there could be problems concerning taxes when we all enter. Is this possible? Any other potential problems I could run across?

Should I file now and get it all-straight for once?
If so, should I back file all of those years!? Or would it be better just to pop up on their radar by filing for the year 2005 and see what happens with that?

If I wanted to backfile for all of those years how would I do this? I can't find this info on the IRS site.

Thanks for any help in these questions!

[bennett]

Hi Benjamin,
I know this might be late for a reply but if it helps....We didn't file from 1987 to 2004. We lived out of country and lived under the $70 at the time???? Only when we returned to the US and my husband went to work did the IRS catch up. BUT all they did was notify us that they had not received the last two years filings. My husband worked two years before anything happened. ( We consulted an attorney when we first came back as we were confused with the laws and info. we'd received out of country. He said don't open a can or worms.) Our CPA attorney filed the 2 years with no explanations and nothing else was said....they owed us money and I'm sure they were sorry Ha! Ha! They would probably still owe us if we back filed. We continue to file. Our CPA attorney said that so many people don't file for one reason or the other that they can't keep up and really not to worry. When we move out of country again we don't intend to burn our bridges so to speak.
Good luck!