Can I use my german passport to travel to USA or do I use my US passport?

And if I lived and worked in germany my whole life and never in the USA and never filed taxes can I enter USA without problems?

I just found out I am us citizen a few years ago don’t ask why but I’m 34 and recently traveled to US with my german passport and they were all like “wtf where is your passport” and I’m like: “Here…” and they “Yeah your american passport?!” and I’m “I’m german” and he is like: “Dude you are born on american ground you are american!”

Well they let me travel in to the states without american passport but told me to go to the embassy as soon as I arrive back in germany or else I won’t be able to enter USA again.

That being said, I done that. Now I have my american passport. But do I show both passports or only US passport? And after doing my research I found out americans file taxes every year. I haven’t done it the last 18 years of working. Should I just not file? I will never work in the USA and I will never live in the USA. Or will I get problems at the airport? Can they see I don’t file?

  • BreakDecks@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    8 months ago

    If you were born in the USA, lived in Germany your whole life, and only recently learned of your US citizenship, you need to seek legal advice from a German law firm or from the government. I suspect that getting your US passport was a huge mistake. You may want to contest the validity of your citizenship, as it doesn’t sound like it offers you any benefits, and might actually be a financial liability.

    • TheGalacticVoid@lemm.ee
      0·
      8 months ago

      I don’t disagree, but why would him getting a US passport matter? Either way, he would still be a US Citizen.

      • BreakDecks@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        8 months ago

        Because getting the passport and traveling with it makes it pretty official. If you’ve never held a passport, it could be easier to argue that the citizenship isn’t valid at all, rather than having to go through the very expensive process of renouncing.

        • TheGalacticVoid@lemm.ee
          0·
          8 months ago

          I don’t see why that distinction matters. The US has documentation saying OP was born in the US. That alone is enough to say he’s a citizen.

          • nelly_man@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            8 months ago

            You’re saying that it doesn’t matter because the US government is able to prove his citizenship, but that isn’t in question. The crux of this matter would be whether OP was ignorant of his citizenship and if that ignorance would have any relevance to his case.

            Securing official documents only available to American citizens makes it more difficult to argue that he was ignorant of his status as an American citizen. He likely could still make a compelling argument (provided he acts quickly), but it does make it a bit more difficult.

    • LedgeDrop@lemm.ee
      0·
      8 months ago

      OP read this, they’re absolutely right - lawyer up!

      Cause in the U. S. if you want to renounce your U. S. citizenship, you must settle your debts - which includes filing your U. S. Taxes.

      … and yes, as a U. S. Citizen you need to file U. S. Taxes *even if you’ve never set foot in the U. S. *.

      Note: there are double taxation laws between the U. S. and Germany, which prevent you from needing to pay taxes in U. S. (up to 100k / year or so), but you still must file them.

      Also, as a U. S. Citizen, you’ll need to file annually a FBAR with the IRS. This is basically a disclosure to the IRS that you have non-u.s. bank accounts (that exceed, in total, 20k usd / year).

      The point being is that, in theory, there could be fines for not doing this, which (in theory) you would have to pay before being allowed to renounce your citizenship.

      In practice, the IRS is pretty approachable - so you probably won’t have an issue, but you’ll definitely want decide if you want to keep the U. S. Citizenship (and the work associated with it: annual taxes and fbar) or renounce it.

      The (only) upshot of filing U. S. taxes abroad if you have kids is that you qualify for a Child Tax Credit. Which amounts to 1000 usd / kid / year (I don’t know if the kids need to have U. S. Citizenship or not)