Student traveling abroad

[JON]

for two years has not filed tax returns for 2012 or 2013 wonders if he needs to. Says when working he was paid in cash and never much - his best month $2,000. What or should he try to file anything. SE tax would probably be the only problem. Was out of the country for abou 27 months - does foreign income exclusion work if return is not timely filed?

[ATSMAN]

If 100% of the income was in cash then the payer never reported anything. Do you want to upset the applecart!

[New York Enrolled Agent]

If 100% of the income was in cash then the payer never reported anything. Do you want to upset the applecart!

Wow!!! I learn something new every day. I never realized payments in cash for services rendered are apparently not reportable on a tax return.

[Dusty2004]

My clients

Wow!!! I learn something new every day. I never realized payments in cash for services rendered are apparently not reportable on a tax return.

My clients, barber's, girlfriend's, cousin told me you did not have to report cash income so I believe her.

Dusty

[Black Bart]

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Foreign-Earned-Income-Exclusion-Can-I-Claim-the-Exclusion-or-Deduction

Now, now, gentlemen; no need to have a runaway applecart. The "non-taxable cash" question is actually quite common.

Usually at least once each season I (and several others here, I suspect) encounter this "possession is 9/10s of the law" legal reasoning put forth by (pick one) cynical/ignorant/unknowing simpletons. The grin and wink ilk is the most annoying (implying you're ready to climb in bed with them); I much prefer the naïve "honest" sort who truly believe and throw it right out there as a fact, i.e., "Oh, it's okay - they paid me in cash and said I don't have to show that!" Both are disappointed when you set 'em straight or show 'em the door.

Years ago in simpler, pre-inflationary times, I'd run across the occasional "pore boy" for whom maybe $200 SE on a cash "side" job would wipe him out. While vaguely curious, I was sometimes reluctant to ask those "probing and relevant questions" (as IRS puts it) regarding "C" activity if it wasn't blatantly put under my nose. Not kosher, but human. Irrelevant now anyway -- everything's too dangerous (although that wasn't quite the thrust of your post, NYEA )

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"...the plain reading of a statute can be ignored as absurd only if the result is so gross as to "shock the general moral or common sense."- Eleventh Circuit

[Burke]

for two years has not filed tax returns for 2012 or 2013 wonders if he needs to. Says when working he was paid in cash and never much - his best month $2,000. What or should he try to file anything. SE tax would probably be the only problem. Was out of the country for abou 27 months - does foreign income exclusion work if return is not timely filed?

If he is asking you this question, you must tell him yes. I do not think FIE is lost on a late filed return.