Question about income from worldwide tax before moving to US

[corvusheart 163]

 Is this going to cause problems with our pending ROC paperwork? When we amend will we have to pay lots of fines for not reporting?

[corvusheart 163]

We went on a UK website to try to get his tax records however it says he needs to provide his national insurance number to aquire such information. He doesn't know his national security number and he lost the card it was on a long time ago. How do we get this national insurance number without being physically present in the UK?

[corvusheart 163]

We contacted the National insurance number enquiries helpline and he spoke with one of them on the phone. She said they will have to send him his number out via post and could not disclose it over phone. So itll probably be a couple weeks before we can amend. And when we get the national insurance number hopefully we can pull up his taxes on the HM Revenue and Customs website, but to pull up anything we need the number first. Here are my following questions.

 

 1. Are we still eligible to amend 2014 tax returns if so for how long? We filed for in in January 2015.

2. Are we going to end up getting severe penalties or fines for not declaring his very small income made in the UK prior to him moving here? We did have a big refund for that year come in. Only my income was reported on the return. He only made under 3k in pounds if that while still in England before he moved here from months Jan - june 2014 he moved here in June 2014.

3. He left a bank account open in the UK when he left because he simply forgot to close it. It only had 7 pounds sitting in it until it was deactivated sometime in mid 2016 from inactivity. Will this need to be reported in some way? Will we be penalized in any way for this?

4. We are currently in the Removal of Conditions pending process. We filed in February.  When we amend tax return for 2014 will we need to send USCIS a copy of it for ROC?

5. Will this negatively effect our ROC process?

 

None of this crossed our minds till now this was all an honest mistake. Nobody told us there was a special way we had to do our taxes or that he needed to report income he had before he even moved here.

Edited April 28, 2017 by corvusheart

[Suss&Camm 2,213]

31 minutes ago, corvusheart said:

1. Are we still eligible to amend 2014 tax returns if so for how long? We filed for in in January 2015.

3 years from filing 

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2. Are we going to end up getting severe penalties or fines for not declaring his very small income made in the UK prior to him moving here? We did have a big refund for that year come in. Only my income was reported on the return. He only made under 3k in pounds if that while still in England before he moved here from months Jan - june 2014 he moved here in June 2014.

No, no fines within time of amending. Also - since in you will be amending, will you be sending the election statement to have him tax resident for the entire year, or will you do the dual return? If you stick with MFJ and the election statement for the whole year you can fill out a 2555ez or 2555 (whichever applies ) to exclude his foreign earned income. 

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3. He left a bank account open in the UK when he left because he simply forgot to close it. It only had 7 pounds sitting in it until it was deactivated sometime in mid 2016 from inactivity. Will this need to be reported in some way? Will we be penalized in any way for this?

No and no

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4. We are currently in the Removal of Conditions pending process. We filed in February.  When we amend tax return for 2014 will we need to send USCIS a copy of it for ROC?

I'm not sure about this one.

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5. Will this negatively effect our ROC process?

No, you are fixing it and doing so within time that you are allowed to.

 

Edited April 28, 2017 by Suss&Camm

[corvusheart 163]

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No, no fines within time of amending. Also - since in you will be amending, will you be sending the election statement to have him tax resident for the entire year, or will you do the dual return? If you stick with MFJ and the election statement for the whole year you can fill out a 2555ez or 2555 (whichever applies ) to exclude his foreign earned income. 

I thought the election statement required us to include his foreign earned income?? We filed married filing jointly when we did our 2014 taxes and we didnt provide any special attatchments to it so Im not sure what we are already considered.

[Wuozopo 4,293]

Quite frankly my dear, your tax return is a mere half raindrop in the ocean called IRS. They have no way of knowing your tax preparer made a boo-boo in 2014. They have no way of knowing your spouse earned a pittance in the UK that year. You are certainly not the only person who has done the exact same thing with no repercussions. If you keep calm and carry on, nothing will ever come of this.  If you feel morally bound to set the record straight, then amend your return to Married Filing Separately. Pay the small difference plus 3 years of interest.   Forget about the quest to determine your spouse's UK earnings in 2014. He has no obligation to file a 2014 tax return. It is only if he is a joint filer that his income has to be reported. 

[Suss&Camm 2,213]

9 minutes ago, corvusheart said:

I thought the election statement required us to include his foreign earned income?? We filed married filing jointly when we did our 2014 taxes and we didnt provide any special attatchments to it so Im not sure what we are already considered.

He was here since June - so he'd be considered a tax resident since the time he entered (physical presence) - which means that without the election statement you would have needed for him to file a 1040 separately. A condition to file jointly is to be considered resident for tax purposes. So if you want to keep the joint return then you have to include the election statement. Yrs you "include" it as in you will report it, but there is a form (that also requires tax residency) that allows you to exclude the income from being viewed as taxable.

 

 

Edited above 

Edited April 28, 2017 by Suss&Camm

[corvusheart 163]

3 minutes ago, Suss&Camm said:

He was here since June - so he'd be considered a tax resident since the time he entered (physical presence) - which means that without the election statement you would have needed for him to file a 1040NR and file separately. A condition to file jointly is to be considered resident for tax purposes. So if you want to keep the joint return then you have to include the election statement. Yrs you "include" it as in you will report it, but there is a form (that also requires tax residency) that allows you to exclude the income from being viewed as taxable.

I Want to stick with married filed jointly so he will have to still report how much he made correct?

[corvusheart 163]

8 minutes ago, Wuozopo said:

Quite frankly my dear, your tax return is a mere half raindrop in the ocean called IRS. They have no way of knowing your tax preparer made a boo-boo in 2014. They have no way of knowing your spouse earned a pittance in the UK that year. You are certainly not the only person who has done the exact same thing with no repercussions. If you keep calm and carry on, nothing will ever come of this.  If you feel morally bound to set the record straight, then amend your return to Married Filing Separately. Pay the small difference plus 3 years of interest.   Forget about the quest to determine your spouse's UK earnings in 2014. He has no obligation to file a 2014 tax return. It is only if he is a joint filer that his income has to be reported. 

I Read when applying for citizenship they can find out.

[Suss&Camm 2,213]

6 minutes ago, corvusheart said:

I Want to stick with married filed jointly so he will have to still report how much he made correct?

Yes in that scenario you wait for that number he needed and get his income info and report it on the 1040 in the joint income. You add the election statement and you file a 2555ez where you really just calculate how much he is able to exclude. Since he made so little he will be able to exclude all of it... the exclusion is performed further down on the 1040. 

You will need to figure the new taxes using the foreign earned income worksheet. His income will only affect the tax bracket (not much since he again made so little), it will be excluded from the taxable income part of the 1040.

Edited April 28, 2017 by Suss&Camm

[corvusheart 163]

 My other worry is getting a hold of his tax info from 2014. Their revenue website is vague and not very helpful. We will have to wait till his national insurance number comes before we can find out if we can access it remotely or not. But if we can't access the records then what??

[jjbandero 39]

Could you not go to the person/entity that paid your husband for his work to find out how much was paid? 

[corvusheart 163]

12 minutes ago, jjbandero said:

Could you not go to the person/entity that paid your husband for his work to find out how much was paid? 

 We live in the USA we'd have to fly all the way back to England which we can't afford right now and even then I don't know if we would be able to view past tax records. The entity that paid him was the department of the UK government responsible for paying carers allowance.

Edited April 28, 2017 by corvusheart

[Suss&Camm 2,213]

1 minute ago, corvusheart said:

 We live in the USA we'd have to fly all the way back to England which we can't afford right now and even then I don't know if we would be able to view past tax records.

I think they meant can't you call the employer? 

[Suss&Camm 2,213]

They are normally required to retain such information for a number of years... he should be able to request PDF copies... he can send copy of UK ID to a secure fax... shouldn't be a problem.