Taxes for N-400

[laface 0]

is it true that u must have filed joint taxes for at least 3 yrs if u r filing citizenship based on marriage?

[broma25 2]

I dont think you have to have filed jointly but you have to have filed them

[laface 0]

Thanks for responding

[jsnearline 2]

When I went to the Denver office to ask what evidence my wife needs to bring regarding our taxes I was told she could bring copies of the returns or transcripts. The officer said what they look for is evidence that we've been filing our taxes JOINTLY for the past three years and as long as we can show that, we should be good. So, at least in Denver, that seems to be their default position as filing a joint return is evidence of marital union.

IF you've been using the married filing separately status, I'd be prepared to give them a good explanation for why you chose to do it that way. I don't think you'd be denied, but it might raise some questions that you would have to answer to their satisfaction.

[NickD 202]

According to the M-476 manual for documents you must send:

4. Documents referring to you and your spouse:

• Tax returns, bank accounts, leases, mortgages, or birth certificates of children, or

• Internal Revenue Service (IRS)-certified copies of the income tax forms that you both filed for the past three years, or

• An IRS tax return transcript for the last three years.

It neither mentions joint or filed separately returns, either are legal with the IRS and in our state, also legal to file either way. Of course the forms have to be filled out correctly, like both of you not filing a head of household or claiming a common dependent when filing separately to gain a tax advantage.

Have to admit about not even thinking about immigration when deciding how to file, key interest was to pay less taxes. In our case we would have lost good sized deductions only available when filing jointly, if not for the federal, definitely for our state like tuition and property tax payments so for us, the joint return was the way to go. If you did file separately, your certified copies should show a common address and that should be all the USCIS is interested in.

But you find you are dealing with one IO and no telling how they will decide, thought our friends that were denied citizenship because of a lack of a joint utility bill and they could have taken that IO to court as no where does it say to supply such evidence. But when we heard about that, we just supplied that utility bill, we just wanted everything to go smooth.

Another question is, if you have filed separately, how do you change that? That can get to be very expensive and time consuming.

Was very naive about immigration and shocked after everything we had to go through for the AOS to learn my wife would only get a conditional green card. Next day, downloaded that I-751 and read it, giving us 21 months to gather evidence and glanced over the N-400 as well. And wife kept in contact with friends that were ahead of us, so we could learn the problems they have encountered. Very difficult to turn back the clock. We also avoided any attempts to overthrow the government, although neither of us have the slightest idea as to how to even do that. They have some pretty big guns.