AOS- work and filing taxes

[mspain 1]

My husband was working on a 3 month employment authorized stamp given to him at POE in his I-94. When we got married, I changed my tax info at work as married filing jointly. I thought his greencard would be here before the end of the year and I also didnt know that I couldnt file jointly with him until I did some reading up on the IRS website. How should I file? Should I contact my employer to change this info to married filing separately and/ or claim him as a dependent? How should he file for himself? Please help!

[marriedtomrg 141]

If he has his SSN already you may file jointly. He doesn't have to have a green card for tax purposes.

My husband was working on a 3 month employment authorized stamp given to him at POE in his I-94. When we got married, I changed my tax info at work as married filing jointly. I thought his greencard would be here before the end of the year and I also didnt know that I couldnt file jointly with him until I did some reading up on the IRS website. How should I file? Should I contact my employer to change this info to married filing separately and/ or claim him as a dependent? How should he file for himself? Please help!

[Inky 1,110]

He doesn't have EAD or green card and hes working? That stamp is not authorized for K-1s to work with.

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

My husband was working on a 3 month employment authorized stamp given to him at POE in his I-94. When we got married, I changed my tax info at work as married filing jointly. I thought his greencard would be here before the end of the year and I also didnt know that I couldnt file jointly with him until I did some reading up on the IRS website. How should I file? Should I contact my employer to change this info to married filing separately and/ or claim him as a dependent? How should he file for himself? Please help!

The temporary employment authorization stamp they give out at JFK is no longer valid for work authorization, and has not been since they changed the I-9 form in April, 2009. A K1 visa holder is eligible to apply for an employment authorization document, but it would expire when their I-94 expires. Given the amount of time it takes to process an EAD, it would likely be expired before it arrived. They become eligible to apply for an EAD again when they file their green card application.

Your husband is probably working without authorization.

Where did you read that you couldn't file a joint tax return?

[Brother Hesekiel 2,236]

Your husband is probably working without authorization.

Where did you read that you couldn't file a joint tax return?

1) Luckily,

working without authorization is not being made an issue of at AOS. He still has to pay taxes though.

2) It's okay to file a joint tax return as a married couple. Immigration, which is the gig of the USCIS, and taxes, which is the gig of the IRS, are two shoes of a pair that has mismatched colors.

[VanessaTony 3,567]

My husband was working on a 3 month employment authorized stamp given to him at POE in his I-94. When we got married, I changed my tax info at work as married filing jointly. I thought his greencard would be here before the end of the year and I also didnt know that I couldnt file jointly with him until I did some reading up on the IRS website. How should I file? Should I contact my employer to change this info to married filing separately and/ or claim him as a dependent? How should he file for himself? Please help!

As others have stated, your husband was/is working illegally, the stamp is NOT valid for a K1 to work. Luckily it is forgiven for him when he files AOS but if he's still working (without an EAD) he should stop because if he's caught he will get into trouble. While it's forgiven when AOS is approved, if he's caught before then he can get into trouble. He also needs to file taxes for it (if it meets the income barrier).

Why can't you file married jointly? He doesn't need a greencard to file taxes... maybe I'm missing something but we filed married joint for 2009 even though I didn't get my GC till July 2010, but I had a SSN. Apparently you can get an ITIN if he doesn't have an SSN yet but can you provide the link stating you can't file jointly?

You can't claim him as a dependent because he's your spouse (so people told me) but you will get some discounts or whatever (more money) because you supported him, at least my hubby and I did.

Edited January 8, 2011 by Vanessa&Tony

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

1) Luckily,

working without authorization is not being made an issue of at AOS. He still has to pay taxes though.

Agreed.

2) It's okay to file a joint tax return as a married couple. Immigration, which is the gig of the USCIS, and taxes, which is the gig of the IRS, are two shoes of a pair that has mismatched colors.

Yeah, that's why I was wondering where she read that she couldn't file a joint tax return. She said she did some reading on the IRS website, and I'd like to see a link to that page. This scenario is covered in IRS publication 519, chapter 1:

http://www.irs.gov/publications/p519/ch01.html#en_US_publink1000222193

If, at the end of your tax year, you are married and one spouse is a U.S. citizen or a resident alien and the other spouse is a nonresident alien, you can choose to treat the nonresident spouse as a U.S. resident. This includes situations in which one spouse is a nonresident alien at the beginning of the tax year, but a resident alien at the end of the year, and the other spouse is a nonresident alien at the end of the year.

If you make this choice, you and your spouse are treated for income tax purposes as residents for your entire tax year. Neither you nor your spouse can claim under any tax treaty not to be a U.S. resident. You are both taxed on worldwide income. You must file a joint income tax return for the year you make the choice, but you and your spouse can file joint or separate returns in later years.

The only downside I see from this is that the foreign spouse's income for the entire year has to be declared, including foreign income. Maybe this is what's preventing her from filing a joint return. If they file separately, him as a non-resident alien, then he'd only have to declare his US income.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Thread moved from AOS forum to Working and Travelling During US Immigration forum as a more appropriate location for this topic