Summary Dissolution vs Regular Divorce (Effects on immigration status)

[David R 2]

Hi Everyone,

I am not sure if you guys will be able to help me but I actually have a tax question regarding separation after marriage.

As you know my wife and I filed for divorce in Feb this year, we actually separated on Dec 30th of 2015. That is the "separation date" on the papers we filed with the courts.

I went to do my 2015 taxes yesterday with HR block and explained the situation to the tax professional. She said I needed to file as single as we separated within the 2015 year.

So I filed as single for 2015 even though we literally only spent one day separated for the entire year.

I am interested to see if anyone has any experience or knowledge on this topic that may be able to provide an insight for me.

To me it seems strange that I would file as single for the whole tax year while we were only apart for one day of it.

Also, I am nervous that USCIS may see that we filed as single for the whole 2015 tax year and it may raise concerns as we only removed conditions of my GC in OCT of 2015.

Anyone know if this will be an issue at all.

Thanks again for all your time.

David

[Caryh 5,206]

Your tax status depends on your marital status on the last day of the year. It does not matter what your marital status was the rest of the year. That said, I would have thought you would have to file married filing separately and not single, as you have yet to divorce. But I've never looked into how you should file while separated.