Received RFE

[nitehero 6]

Hi all,

We received an RFE for my wife to submit more documentation. (I am a US citizen).

Admittedly, we didn't put our I-751 documents together as thoroughly as we could have. But no use crying over spilled milk, just need to get them what they need now!

I owned the house before we were married, and to add her would have required refinancing the house. So we never added her. Also, she's not on the utility bills (again, were all in my name before marriage).

So first, some things we don't have:

• Both names on mortgage
• Both names on utilities
• Credit card in both names
• Car in both names

However, our joint bank accounts pay the bills for all of those things.

Here are the docs we are including, plus our questions to you all:

• 2013, 2014 and 2015 tax docs for Federal and State, along with the e-file authorization forms we sent to our accountant. (We sent 2013 before, but they said there was no proof we'd filed it.)
• Affidavit from accountant (CPA and also Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE)) saying he has been doing my taxes for nearly 10 years, and that he has been doing our joint taxes since we were married
• W-2s from my wife showing our house as her residence
• Auto insurance cards for both of our cars. Both names on both cards.
• Auto registration for both cars. Her car is in her name only, my car in my name only, but they show the same address.
• Auto lease for my wife showing our shared residence as address (but I am not co-lessee).
• Should we send the auto insurance policies? How about billing statements?
• Letter from medical insurance company adding her to my policy
• Medical Insurance cards listing both of our names (wife as dependent)
• Should we include billing statements? They only list my name.
• Banks statements for two different banks, listing both of our names on the account. One account was hers, one was mine (before marriage). Now we are on both.
• Three Affidavits from people we know
• Wills, living wills, and power of attorneys (but all done recently)
• Should we include documents that show the house, but are in her name only? For example, she has a credit card and a personal loan that are in her name only, but list our house as the address.

One thing is that USCIS asked that we not send documents we've already sent. As I mentioned before, unfortunately we weren't that thorough, and we didn't keep a copy of what we sent before. I did keep a list, but not 100% detailed. So for the bank statements, we previously sent them "a few months" (according to RFE). These were the few months before we sent in the I-751. We're now sending everything back to the start of the marriage, but with a gap that includes what we think we sent before. Should we just fill in that gap and send everything? Worried that they won't have the old stuff handy.

What do you all think? Will this be enough?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

I think you are right on the money, send it all the bank statements since your marriage, that will do the trick. Also, any other joint bill or policy you have that cover a large period of your marriage should be included.

[NMK94 4]

Hi all. Thanks for the help so far.

Is it worth it to send state tax returns if we're already sending IRS returns? They would not be transcripts but copies from our accountant.

[NikLR 13,227]

I believe the instructions say not to?

[lucybelle 453]

Send tax transcripts, not the full returns.

[NMK94 4]

OK, thanks. The RFE did say "joint federal and state tax returns", but if transcripts are the way to go then we'll only have IRS.

[lucybelle 453]

OK, thanks. The RFE did say "joint federal and state tax returns", but if transcripts are the way to go then we'll only have IRS.

Yup, the proof of those are in the tax transcripts.

[NMK94 4]

When submitting affidavits (we have them, might as well submit), should we include the originals? Or send copies, keep the originals for ourselves?

[NMK94 4]

Got the tax transcripts last week. Finally finished assembling everything and just sent. Fingers crossed!

[NMK94 4]

Just wanted to follow up and say we received the I-797 NOA saying my wife has been approved!!!

Thank you to everyone who helped with their advice. I only wish we had looked for Visa Journey before we submitted our initial evidence. Then we wouldn't have had this panic after receiving our RFE.

Thanks again to all!!!

[wavj 26]

I would add this: forget the utility bills. We didnt include a single one in our packet and had no issues whatsoever with ROC. This is a ridiculous requirement, but one that for some reason many in these forums tout heavily. I could add my dog's name to any utility bill. What does that prove? Stick with the reasonable and big ticket stuff like tax transcripts, life insurances, deeds, bank statements etc. These are things that are vey difficult to fake

I can attest to this statement. When adjusting status, as far as bills, we only sent the cellphone bill just because I owned the account for years and my husband needed a new phone and I included him in my plan and both our names are in the bill. He bought the house we live in from his mom years ago and some utility bills are still under her name. Only water bill is under his name and we never included my name on it. We presented other more solid evidence that we never received a RFE and we were approved in the spot.

[me55592 1]

You can go to the IRS website and print your tax return receipts instead of waiting 10 days for them.