September 2016 I-130 filers

[JessieABC 159]

13 hours ago, April Mora said:

I just ended up filing single. You'll have to file either as single or married separate and you will have to mail your taxes physically. Since he doesn't have a SSN, you'll have to put NRA in the spot for SSN. NRA = non-resident alien

 

36 minutes ago, j0hnj3ly said:

Just filled this out myself and had the same question. When filling out the paperwork (is it W2 or W4?), it says on there to mark single if your SO is a non resident alien.

W2 is simply your employment wages for the IRS to understand how much you've made and paid.  My W2 also indicated single but this is because my spouse is a non-resident alien and the company is not responsible towards your spouse, whether in benefits or other fiduciary aspects.  

 

When you file your taxes, you MUST file as married, whether separate or jointly, if you are married on or before the last day of the 2017 calendar year.  I believe you can also file head of household as well but both "Head of Household"/"Married Filing Jointly" statuses will require your spouse to have an ITIN or SSN AND you will be required to report their worldwide income (and, if applicable, any paperwork related to income tax treaties which exempts them from their US tax obligations).

 

If they do not have an ITIN/SSN, or you do not want to deal with the hassle of reporting their worldwide income, the remaining option is to file MARRIED FILING SEPARATELY.   As someone stated above, if your interview falls after April 18, 2017 of this year, they will be checking your taxes for married status.

 

Edited March 2, 2017 by JessieABC

[AlviNY 9]

Hello,

 

How's it that i see some people filled in November getting approved from Potomac and Texas service center and i'm stuck October filler went to Nebraska 

[heyusa 118]

3 minutes ago, AlviNY said:

Hello,

 

How's it that i see some people filled in November getting approved from Potomac and Texas service center and i'm stuck October filler went to Nebraska 

 

 

we are all waiting since September...

[MD11PILOT 26]

1 hour ago, JessieABC said:

 

W2 is simply your employment wages for the IRS to understand how much you've made and paid.  My W2 also indicated single but this is because my spouse is a non-resident alien and the company is not responsible towards your spouse, whether in benefits or other fiduciary aspects.  

 

When you file your taxes, you MUST file as married, whether separate or jointly, if you are married on or before the last day of the 2017 calendar year.  I believe you can also file head of household as well but both "Head of Household"/"Married Filing Jointly" statuses will require your spouse to have an ITIN or SSN AND you will be required to report their worldwide income (and, if applicable, any paperwork related to income tax treaties which exempts them from their US tax obligations).

 

If they do not have an ITIN/SSN, or you do not want to deal with the hassle of reporting their worldwide income, the remaining option is to file MARRIED FILING SEPARATELY.   As someone stated above, if your interview falls after April 18, 2017 of this year, they will be checking your taxes for married status.

 

Interesting. First off I don't give advice I am neither a tax consultant nor attorney. I am an airline pilot.

 

I came up against this tax isssue when I filed my taxes this year. According to the IRS if you're married, you're married, simple as that. I am not going to get into the ins and outs of how to file. I went with "married filng seperately" (NRA). This actually cost me about $800 in refund vs single, but had no choice. Certainly didn't want to have my wifes income thrown into the mix or get sideways with the IRS or USCIS.

 

For those who filed "single" whilst actually married, I think technically you would need to file an ammended return. You may actually owe the IRS money dependent on your refund or money originally owed to the IRS. EVERYONE HAS A DIFFERENT TAX SITUATION.

 

The W4 issue. All this deals with is notifying your employer what taxes to take out. You can fiddle with it to change your take home pay. Mine shows single with no deductions. I could put married with 4 deductions but would owe the IRS money at the end of a year.

 

I did my taxes through Turbo Tax which actually had advice on "Non Resident Alien" spouses (NRA). You can't file it electronically with NRA. Still, I should have my refund in 6 weeks vs 3 weeks electronically. Perhaps the IRS should run USCIS lol.....

[MD11PILOT 26]

16 hours ago, rahill said:

I thought I'd ask a question here since I have a feeling may of you will be dealing with the same situation. I'm looking to file my taxes and I'm wondering about what the heck to do. I was married in Ethiopia, my spouse's home country, we have not been married here in US, he has never been here and has no income here, he doesn't have a SSN or an ITIN. Do I have to file married filing separately??? Is that really my only option? It's like the worst option for me in terms of tax credits...anybody else dealing with this? 

Yes you are right. Filing as "married filing seperately" is worse than single, unless of course your spouse makes very little and your deductions would offset his/her income. It stinks I know. My wife makes far more than the deduction I would receive for putting her on my return as filing jointly. 

[The waddoups 4]

2 hours ago, AlviNY said:

Hello,

 

How's it that i see some people filled in November getting approved from Potomac and Texas service center and i'm stuck October filler went to Nebraska 

You should sign in Nebraska fillers forum and you will see you are not alone. 

 

[rahill 28]

2 hours ago, MD11PILOT said:

Interesting. First off I don't give advice I am neither a tax consultant nor attorney. I am an airline pilot.

 

I came up against this tax isssue when I filed my taxes this year. According to the IRS if you're married, you're married, simple as that. I am not going to get into the ins and outs of how to file. I went with "married filng seperately" (NRA). This actually cost me about $800 in refund vs single, but had no choice. Certainly didn't want to have my wifes income thrown into the mix or get sideways with the IRS or USCIS.

 

For those who filed "single" whilst actually married, I think technically you would need to file an ammended return. You may actually owe the IRS money dependent on your refund or money originally owed to the IRS. EVERYONE HAS A DIFFERENT TAX SITUATION.

 

The W4 issue. All this deals with is notifying your employer what taxes to take out. You can fiddle with it to change your take home pay. Mine shows single with no deductions. I could put married with 4 deductions but would owe the IRS money at the end of a year.

 

I did my taxes through Turbo Tax which actually had advice on "Non Resident Alien" spouses (NRA). You can't file it electronically with NRA. Still, I should have my refund in 6 weeks vs 3 weeks electronically. Perhaps the IRS should run USCIS lol.....

Thank you for this and everyone else who responded. I mistakenly filed single but am mailing in an amended return that has my status as married filed separately and I'm forgoing a substantial refund but I'd rather skip the refund than get myself in trouble with the IRS or have our visa case be adversely affected. I used Turbo Tax as well so I will have to mail in the amendment because you can't file electronically with a NRA spouse. What a headache...but hopefully next year we'll get the benefit of married filing jointly. I mean, as you say, everyone's tax situation is different, but for me, this would be a better situation than the filed separately *sigh* Either way, I'd like to have my spouse with me by this time next year! Good luck to everyone and I'm glad I asked this because it seems others were going to or had mistakenly filed single. Definitely seek out good legal advice on this guys.  

[Awai5 28]

August, October, November fillers getting approvals everyday. Dont really understand how US's system works because only September fillers receiving case transfer letters or their wait time is increasing. Fingers not crossed but tornned. 

[MKB 29]

On the tax issue, this is serious to me personally. Therefore, we both decided to do it right the year we got married. Multiple tax preparers found it difficult to file for us especially that I didn't have ITIN for the first tax year. H&R block was our go-to and only their senior preparer with help of his superior were able to figure it out. We file as married filing jointly now.

 

Basically, by being a spouse of a USC, you'll need to file. Now, whether your foreign income is taxable or not, that's another subject that I still don't understand. For the purpose of filing only, the spouse of USC will be treated as a resident. Therefore, whatever applies to green card holders is the same for the spouse.

 

We know that doing it this way is costly, but we're really concerned about doing anything wrong. We have good intention. So, the pros of this way is that we can prove our intention to do it the right way, and also get insurance for the filing in case anything was wrong.

Edited March 2, 2017 by MKB

[AlviNY 9]

I feel like Nebraska is still processing August and transferring the September fillers to other service centers and after august processing they will just jump on to October in Nebraska, what you guys think?

[rahill 28]

2 hours ago, MKB said:

On the tax issue, this is serious to me personally. Therefore, we both decided to do it right the year we got married. Multiple tax preparers found it difficult to file for us especially that I didn't have ITIN for the first tax year. H&R block was our go-to and only their senior preparer with help of his superior were able to figure it out. We file as married filing jointly now.

 

Basically, by being a spouse of a USC, you'll need to file. Now, whether your foreign income is taxable or not, that's another subject that I still don't understand. For the purpose of filing only, the spouse of USC will be treated as a resident. Therefore, whatever applies to green card holders is the same for the spouse.

 

We know that doing it this way is costly, but we're really concerned about doing anything wrong. We have good intention. So, the pros of this way is that we can prove our intention to do it the right way, and also get insurance for the filing in case anything was wrong.

The research I did suggested that I could not file jointly since we are not living together. Married filing jointly would have actually been better for me in so far as tax credits go but my understanding was that I couldn't do this since we are living apart. Once he is here we will file jointly.

[MOMO_SLZ 3]

I have the USCIS app and everytime I input my case number and hit search it only shows 20 cases with I-130 for September.  I was hoping to see some cases with priority dates before mine but it only shows the cases after my PD.  I even changes the number to 100 and it will show the same cases. Am I doing something wrong? 

[Awai5 28]

3 minutes ago, MOMO_SLZ said:

I have the USCIS app and everytime I input my case number and hit search it only shows 20 cases with I-130 for September.  I was hoping to see some cases with priority dates before mine but it only shows the cases after my PD.  I even changes the number to 100 and it will show the same cases. Am I doing something wrong? 

What app you got? I got one but it only shows my status thats all? Can you share please

[MOMO_SLZ 3]

49 minutes ago, Awai5 said:

What app you got? I got one but it only shows my status thats all? Can you share please

It's called Case Tracker from iPhone 

[agripa 100]

3 hours ago, rahill said:

The research I did suggested that I could not file jointly since we are not living together. Married filing jointly would have actually been better for me in so far as tax credits go but my understanding was that I couldn't do this since we are living apart. Once he is here we will file jointly.

This is incorrect. See the following link from the IRS' website. I've reproduced the appropriate sections from this website --

 

Quote

You can choose married filing jointly as your filing status if you are considered married and both you and your spouse agree to file a joint return. On a joint return, you and your spouse report your combined income and deduct your combined allowable expenses. You can file a joint return even if one of you had no income or deductions.

 

The IRS defines "considered married" as follows --

Quote

You are considered married for the whole year if, on the last day of your tax year, you and your spouse meet any one of the following tests.

1. You are married and living together.
2. You are living together in a common law marriage recognized in the state where you now live or in the state where the common law marriage began.
3. You are married and living apart, but not legally separated under a decree of divorce or separate maintenance.
4. You are separated under an interlocutory (not final) decree of divorce.

You are not required to be living together in order to file taxes jointly.