tax return while "status pending"?

[CWR 0]

Hi,

I was wondering about something and thought someone here might know the answer:

Since it looks like USCIS is really taking its sweet time to approve my AOS, I am wondering how to do the joint taxreturn next year if I should still be unapproved and thus "status pending".

We only have my husband's income, I don't have any.

When I looked on last year's tax papers, it said somewhere (at least that's how I understood it) that he could only claim me as his spouse on the tax return if I was a legal permanent resident.....which of course I am not at the moment.

He has taken the extra monthly deduction for being married since our wedding and thus paid less taxes this year.....so if he wasn't able to claim me on the return, we would have to pay back a lot of money, wouldn't we...?

Does anyone know how this works during pending status, or has anyone filed a joint return with their spouse during that period of time....?

Thanks,

CW

[Kez/JWolf 6]

you can file Married Filling Jointly and be out of the country.... you dont have to be a greencard holder.... you dont have to have any income as long as you have a SSN or an ITIN you can be included and get the benefits of joint filling...

[Yodrak 7]

CWR,

That's not how the tax instructions read. Read again - carefully.

A non-citizen non-resident who is married to a US citizen can be a US tax payer simply by declaring that they want to be a US taxpayer, even if they do will not owe the US government any tax and their tax-paying status will instead reduce the tax burden of their spouse.

Yodrak

...

When I looked on last year's tax papers, it said somewhere (at least that's how I understood it) that he could only claim me as his spouse on the tax return if I was a legal permanent resident.....which of course I am not at the moment.

....

CW

[kim&james 0]

I think that you file a W-7 (please check this) for a ITIN number and will then be able to apply married filing jointly... thats what I use since I dont have a SSN yet and have filed here for the last 2 years. Not being here for 1 of those years.

[CWR 0]

Thanks everybody! Now I feel better

I do have a SSN, so that won't be a problem.

I don't know where it said it about the legal resident status (not in the instructions but somewhere on the top sheet of his return last year......his sister prepares the returns for him on the computer, so I don't know much about the whole process....I just remembered that last year there was some fine print about the legal resident status, and I got worried.)

But thanks to you and this great forum, I got the information I needed right away

Thanks again,

CW

[Killer_Clown_2009 0]

Hi there.

When your spouse files his taxes, you can fill out a form (W-7), requestring an ITIN (individual Taxpayer Identification Number). ITIN is issued if you do NOT have a US SSN, if you have a SSN, you just use that. Your husband files his taxes as married with you added in as his spouse.

You file the ITIN application WITH your husband's tax return.

They will need some id, like a passport and your marriage certificate (it's all explained on the ITIN application). You can get certified copies of the identification and send it in with the ITIN application.

I simply brought my information to the IRS customer service center closest to my home along with our tax return and the ITIN application. The agent took a copy of our marriage certificte and my passport and reviewed the ITIN for accuracy.

There were no issues at all and it was pretty painless.

Here's tjhe link to the ITIN information page on the IRS site, you can download the form there.

http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=96287,00.html

Edited November 14, 2006 by jane2005