Please answer....taxes

[sara91 0]

Hi this is a question to all those tax experts or accountants here at visajourney.

Here is my situtation my husband came to the US last year on a K1 visa and he has received his EAD and AP and are interview for the AOS is the end of this month. He hasn't started working yet and we are only living of my income.

So concerning filing my taxes for this april....how should I file them....like i normally did while I was single, only know I am married filing jointly or do I count him as my dependent? Is there anything different I should do this time. Sorry if this question seems silly or stupid....but when it comes to taxes I am a complete dummy. ..... Thanks for your help guys.

[Reba 2]

you should just go to H&R Block and they could do a comparison of both scenarios for you.

[motu 6]

My wife came on a K1 last year and we got married in Sept 2005. We filed as "Married Filing Jointly" - I declared her 'foreign' income as "Not reported on a W-2" and then was able to exclude all of her 'foreign' income using form 2555 (Foreign Earned Income.) Thus the net effect was 0 additional income because of her - but better status - married filing joint and got a chunk of money back. I used TaxACt for free for federal filing and $12.95 for state filing - I got my refunds in 10 to 14 days (direct deposit.) Good Luck

P.S. She worked in Colombia for 6 months but not al all in USA. So, I first declared and then excluded all of her income.

Edited March 17, 2006 by motu

[sara91 0]

any other suggestions please ????

[Autumnal 25]

So concerning filing my taxes for this april....how should I file them....like i normally did while I was single, only know I am married filing jointly or do I count him as my dependent? Is there anything different I should do this time. Sorry if this question seems silly or stupid....but when it comes to taxes I am a complete dummy. ..... Thanks for your help guys.

I don't believe you can call him a dependent because he's not a minor or whatnot, but don't quote me on that. Most people who are married file as a married couple, jointly. His lack of income will probably bring down your taxes paid. So: dependent no, file married jointly yes, probably.

Beyond that, I don't know what to tell you.

We'll be filing through H&R Block or Jackson-Hewitt this time around, so I won't know until we're done in how they consider us.

[grouchy 0]

Married filing jointly according to what my tax lawyer told me. Gets preferable tax treatment (plus is better for CIS purposes)

Hi this is a question to all those tax experts or accountants here at visajourney.

Here is my situtation my husband came to the US last year on a K1 visa and he has received his EAD and AP and are interview for the AOS is the end of this month. He hasn't started working yet and we are only living of my income.

So concerning filing my taxes for this april....how should I file them....like i normally did while I was single, only know I am married filing jointly or do I count him as my dependent? Is there anything different I should do this time. Sorry if this question seems silly or stupid....but when it comes to taxes I am a complete dummy. ..... Thanks for your help guys.

[JayJay 4]

Go the married filing joint route.

We tried this, but then my MIL took over completely, twice, and decided she'd file them for us, seperately. Because of a $300 low income deduction or something. Now we have only got a joint medical account to prove we even live at the same address....and I suppose, a few letters from employers. But that doesn't really count as much. But then it is impossible, int he situation we're in, to ahve ANY say on the way our lives are "run" (sorry, getting a bit bitter here, but then again, it's messing with my entire life...).

So yup, I'd go filing jointly, so that you don't end up in our situation - it's all good evidence. ow I don't even know if we'll have enough to prove we're bona-fide. 'Specially since we've been stressed out, adn stressing at each other lately so the body language probably won't be good either. Oh, and the ride we were meant ot have, the MIL, pulled out at the last minute, too, leaving me with the responsibility of finding a ride 2 hours to the cities with less than two weeks until the interview date.

*vent over*

[motu 6]

Jayjay I filed married filing jointly but didn't even take our 2005 tax return with us to the AOS interview! I guess I didn't feel as stressed as you do.

[canuck1971 0]

As far as I know, you can't claim your spouse as a dependent, but you can claim an exemption for them which is really the same thing. This was my first year filing as a married person and the easiest way to find out how you should be filing is to use a software package that you buy, or one of the ones that's available online, (I use taxactonline myself). Then just fill it out as married filing jointly, see what the numbers look like, and then just go back and change it to married filing single and look at the numbers again. It only takes a few minutes to do it and believe me, the difference can be in the thousands of dollars. A general rule of thumb though is that most people are better off filing a joint married return.

[hcj 0]

If your marital status as of Dec 31, 2005 was "married", you have two options for filing:

MARRIED filing jointly

MARRIED filing separately

You may not file as SINGLE unless you were single on Dec 31, 2005.

If you file married filing separately, your husband should file his own "married filing separately" return.

He is not your dependent and you cannot claim him as one. However, filing "married filing jointly" will give you a larger standard deduction than filing "single" would, so you should owe/pay less taxes if you are taking the standard deduction.

Nothing much else special to do -- just make sure you check the right box for your marital status and then follow the rest of the instructions!

P.S. "Married filing separately" is not the same as filing "single". The amount of tax you pay as "married filing separately" is usually higher than if you were still single and could file your taxes as "single". Again, you do not have a choice. You are either single or you are married. If married, you may file jointly or separately. For most people, filing separately results in higher taxes than either "married filing jointly" or "single".