Naturalization, Citizenship Tax Question for Naturalization. N400

[Student4Life]

Jurisdiction

New Jersey

I am applying for U.S. citizenship and I have a question about the tax filing requirement. I received my green card in 2015, but I did not work or file taxes for the first three years because I had no income. Is this a problem for my application, or can I just explain that I was not working and not required to file taxes for those years? Please advise me on how to proceed. Thank you for your time and attention.

 

[Tax Counsel]

If you had no taxable gross income then you have no federal income tax filing requirement. Since you have a green card, you are treated as resident in the U.S. for federal income tax purposes, which means that the rule that applies is that you are generally not required to file a federal income income tax return unless your gross income exceeds the standard deduction for the year. For a single person for 2023 that's $13850 (it goes up every year because of inflation).The biggest exception to this is if you are self-employed, in which case if you have net income from the self employment of more than $400 you must file a return because you'd have to pay FICA (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) taxes on that income, and that's collected on the income tax return (Form 1040). If you are in compliance with the tax law, that is all that USCIS should care about. You may request from the IRS transcripts of the income reported for you by persons paid you to help show USCIS there was no income for those years.

 

[Student4Life]

If you had no taxable gross income then you have no federal income tax filing requirement. Since you have a green card, you are treated as resident in the U.S. for federal income tax purposes, which means that the rule that applies is that you are generally not required to file a federal income income tax return unless your gross income exceeds the standard deduction for the year. For a single person for 2023 that's $13850 (it goes up every year because of inflation).The biggest exception to this is if you are self-employed, in which case if you have net income from the self employment of more than $400 you must file a return because you'd have to pay FICA (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) taxes on that income, and that's collected on the income tax return (Form 1040). If you are in compliance with the tax law, that is all that USCIS should care about. You may request from the IRS transcripts of the income reported for you by persons paid you to help show USCIS there was no income for those years.

Thanks for detailed answer most probably i am good to go with NO income NO tax thing.