AOS I-864 Tax Transcripts with ex husband's info

[Allison/Robert 43]

I'm sure I am not the first person to have this issue, but I can't seem to find this specific info on VisaJourney from past posts.

 

For the first half of 2016, I was still married to my ex-husband.  We filed our taxes for (tax year 2015) in 2016 as married filing jointly (after much research here on VJ about whether or not that's ok in the eyes of the USCIS knowing I'd be filing for the I-129 petition for my British fiance).  The divorce was final in June 2016.  In July 2016, I filed the I-129 petition for my British fiance.  He's here now, by way of the approved K-1 visa, since December 1, 2016.  We're filing for his AOS as soon as we have everything together.

 

The I-864 requires the most recent tax transcript (in my case it's 2015), which was filed with my ex-husband as mentioned above.  This transcript does not itemize whose income was which, so it combines mine and my ex-husband's incomes together.  When I tried to submit this for evidence during the embassy interview (which I attended with my fiance), they asked for something which had only my income, which made complete sense.  I had my pay stubs from the past 6 months, so that sufficed.  Well, for the AOS process I can only submit the tax transcript, nothing else, to prove income.

 

I had seen another post on VJ which recommended calling the IRS and requesting a tax transcript showing only MY income and taxes, etc.  So today I called the IRS and they are not able to extract my information from a transcript showing a joint file.  They offered, instead, to send me transcripts of proof of income and wages, so I requested the 3 most recent transcripts with that information.

 

I'm planning to send the USCIS my most recent tax transcript from 2015 which will show my ex-husband's info, the IRS transcript showing my evidence of income and wages, and a letter explaining the situation.  (I also have my W-2 from 2015 if that would help) Do you think that will be acceptable?  OR should I just file for my 2016 taxes which will NOT include my ex-husband's information because we were separated fully for the entirety of 2016, just not legally divorced?  The only drawback of postponing my foreign husband's AOS so I can file taxes for 2016, is the average 4 to 6 weeks that it will take to process those taxes, receive a refund or owe an amount before I can request a transcript, and my husband's I-94 expires on February 28, 2017.  He is really nervous about being out-of-status for that amount of time, and I don't blame him even though we're both aware that any lapses are forgiven by the US gov't.

 

Advice?

 

Thank you so much, and sorry it's a lot to read!

 

Edited:  to clarify that my ex husband and I filed for our 2015 tax year together in 2016.

Edited February 15, 2017 by Allison/Robert