After walking away from America, how does one come back?

April 27, 2017 7:37 AM

Okay, a friend of mine went off to teach English in China like 5 or 6 years ago. She was seriously suicidally depressed and decided she needed to change everything about her life. Everyone was shocked but supportive. She's remained alive because of this. But the way she left is causing her to think she can't come back and none of us know how to help.

What we didn't know is she walked away from her life here. Like... completely just walked away.

Her mortgage was upside down and she emptied her house, locked the door, and mailed the bank her key. She had a car with loan payments and she parked the car in the bank's parking lot and left it. She hasn't paid taxes in the entire time she's been in China. Anything to maintain a life her in America stopped like she hit a pause button.

Her depression hasn't abated, but she promised to never kill herself in China because her family would probably never get her body back. But everything overwhelms her and she isolates herself. We say come back, and the above came spilling out. She doesn't think she can come back. Well, I mean, she came back for a short visit, so she doesn't get stopped at the airport. This was before Trump, though, and all the trouble with immigration and studying people coming back into the country. She doesn't think she'd be able to come back a live here without being arrested or something, and the fear of that makes her shut down.

How does one go about fixing this? And as cheaply as possible because she does not have much. Who does she contact even?

posted by anonymous to Law & Government (18 answers total)

Probably start with a bankruptcy lawyer and a tax lawyer/accountant.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 7:50 AM on April 27, 2017 [10 favorites]

In what state were the mortgage and car liens? This matters because different states have different statute of limitations on debt. After that time is up, she can no longer be sued, but her credit will be ruined, which will obviously affect her ability to rent an apartment, get credit cards, open utilities, etc.

Taxes are a different matter--I don't know much about that.
posted by Automocar at 7:52 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh, and: she won't be arrested for any of this. These are civil matters, not criminal.
posted by Automocar at 7:53 AM on April 27, 2017 [7 favorites]

It might be also worthwhile to hire a reputable private investigator to get the lay of the land so she can see where the problems are and decide which lawyer(s) to hire.
posted by *s at 7:53 AM on April 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

It doesn't sound like she's done anything that could get her arrested. Not paying taxes shouldn't get her a warrant. For all the IRS knows she just hasn't earned any money during the last few years. She probably doesn't have any warrants out on her.

I'm sure there are ways to determine if a person has warrants on them, a quick google search yields lots of possibilities. A friend in law enforcement or a lawyer could probably find out.
posted by mareli at 7:54 AM on April 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

To be fair, there's a lot more to "I can't come back" once you've been living in another country so long than just the financial issues she dealing with. I lived abroad for 5 years (2 different countries) and coming back to the USA, dealing with reverse culture shock, trying to make a new social network, and just setting up life here has been incredibly difficult- and I don't even have any pre-existing mental health conditions to deal with.

The number 1 things she'd need coming back would be mental health care support more than anything else.
posted by raccoon409 at 7:56 AM on April 27, 2017 [24 favorites]

Although what your friend has listed may be purely civil, I would not blithely tell someone they won't get arrested before any kind of check is done. There may be more there than friend is telling you or criminal consequences that friend is unaware of.
posted by *s at 7:58 AM on April 27, 2017 [8 favorites]

Right. I mean, might some kind of debt she held have led to collection activities that resulted in a bench warrant? (Dunno, IANAL)
posted by salvia at 8:13 AM on April 27, 2017

Lawyer

Reason: the IRS probably cares a lot more than one might think. I knew a nice fellow who fell apart completely when his daughter died -- stopped working, stopped paying taxes, basically sat in the living room doing nothing while one utility after another shut off his service for about four years.

Once he pulled himself together, the IRS refused to believe he'd earned nothing over the intervening years, decided he'd been cheat, and destroyed him financially (huuuuge fines with zero leniency). Maybe they're more polite now (it's been ten years) but I wouldn't gamble on it. He got his life back together, and they very thoroughly destroyed it again.

So, the way you can help is to band together with other concerned parties, and pay a lawyer to consider the matter in detail.
posted by aramaic at 8:15 AM on April 27, 2017 [5 favorites]

If she has unpaid federal student loans she could be arrested.
posted by charlielxxv at 8:18 AM on April 27, 2017

Basically get her ssn, former address, and prepare a survey listing her assets and liabilities. There are variety of credit checks and background reports accessible online. You go to the tax
office of the county where her house was located and ask for a report on liens or title status, or hire a title company. You research statute of limitation issues regarding debt. Basically it's a whole process and will take many man hours to sort through. A lawyer based in her former state who deals.with debt should be able to help.
posted by charlielxxv at 8:24 AM on April 27, 2017

She probably didn't make enough while in China to even owe taxes- if she was out of the country for enough days in the year, she doesn't owe taxes on the first x amount of money she made, x being something like 100k. She still needed to file but the penalty for that is not a big deal to my understanding.
posted by cacao at 8:31 AM on April 27, 2017 [6 favorites]

There's a tax treaty between the US and China to prevent double taxation. I gather taxes still need to be filed every year, but maybe there's a loophole somewhere. There's probably a penalty for failing to file - but a lawyer or accountant familiar with expat needs should be able to help (maybe like these people, but I just googled them, not an endorsement).
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:33 AM on April 27, 2017

seconding Cacao- I lived in China for several years and did not owe taxes. I believe you have to earn over 190 K/yr in China to have to pay taxes in the US, which basically no ESL teacher in China would ever earn.
posted by bearette at 8:36 AM on April 27, 2017

different states have different statute of limitations on debt. After that time is up, she can no longer be sued, but her credit will be ruined,

The statute of limitations generally doesn't run if the person leaves the jurisdiction. This kind of wrinkle is why a lawyer (and a CPA) is needed. However, having surrendered her keys and (hopefully) surrendered her car, she may not be in as bad a situation as she imagines, as long as she has someone good to advocate for her. E.g., if she's in a nonrecourse state, the house has probably long been foreclosed on, but that ends her responsibilities to the bank (although there might be tax implications). Paying for a lawyer to sort her out would be the kindest thing you could do for her.

(You will not be arrested for not paying your student loans (unless one engages in some very specific behavior of contempt which could not be the case here). It is actually unconstitutional to imprison a person for failure to pay debts which they are unable to pay, although in many states the judges are so impossibly stupid, careless, and lazy that it ends up happening.)
posted by praemunire at 8:48 AM on April 27, 2017 [6 favorites]

I think the first thing you want to do is help her straighten out her taxes by hiring a good accountant. As of a couple of months ago, the IRS is moving to revoke the passports for people who have more than $50,000 in delinquent taxes. I am sure your friend is not in that situation, but without tax filing, the IRS doesn't know this.

Find a specialist accountant who works with people in her situation: overdue taxes for someone who lives out of the country. (Someone else on metafilter suggested that HR Block has a department that deals just with citizens living outside the U.S, they might be the most cost effective). Good luck.
posted by nanook at 9:38 AM on April 27, 2017

I want to second raccoon409 -- I had to move back to the US after many years away (and only in Britain!), and returning was extremely difficult. Reverse culture shock is a really hard thing, and I was in a fairly bad way for about a year afterwards, including suicidal thoughts, self-harm, etc.

Definitely lay the groundwork for the legal stuff, but I'd prioritize mental health care and support over everything but actually making it into the country without being arrested.
posted by kalimac at 9:57 AM on April 27, 2017 [4 favorites]

Please tell her this is all FINE and she can deal with this.

She needs a bankruptcy attorney and an accountant. She might not need to declare bankruptcy, or she might, I do know that negotiating back taxes with the IRS is EASY PEASY - none of this should stop her from coming back.

Seriously. Get her in touch with professionals and help her get home.

Is she in a category that will get her extra attention from the Trump administration? A good lawyer can help her sort through this.

Good luck.
posted by jbenben at 10:02 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]