I-864 - Current individual annual income

[lunarsol 0]

Hello,

 

We are shortly going to be filing for AOS after I arrived here on a K1 visa in May. We are a little confused about the sponsor's "current individual annual income" on the I-864, and seem to be getting conflicting information from different sources.

 

My fiancee (soon to be wife) started a full time job at the beginning of May, with a salary $40,000 per year. Prior to this, however, she was self employed, and for the past few years her income has not met the threshold. I understand that it is current income that they are most concerned about, however, we are confused about a couple of things:

1. For the part in the I-864 where she has to record her "current individual annual income", would she enter $40,000 (as this is what she will be earning annually), OR should she calculate the income based on what she is expected to earn in 2017 (i.e. what she expects to earn from this job from May - December, and anything she earned prior to her becoming employed in May)? I have seen conflicting answers on this.
2. When we submit the application, she will have 4 months of paystubs, as well as her initial employment letter. Would this be enough to satisfy them?

Thank you!!

Dan

[KULtoATL 1,551]

Current annual income would be the $40000. It does say 'current' and 'annual' so yes the full amount excluding her previous earnings in her last job that took place earlier in the year.

 

4 months of pay stubs is fine. The employer letter wouldn't be her job offer or engagement letter. It should be a new letter that states her position, permanent or part time, duration she's worked there and her current expected annual income. 

 

It's ok if her past tax transcripts do not show above the poverty guideline. What matters is her CURRENT annual income, which does

[Suss&Camm 2,213]

20 minutes ago, KULtoATL said:

Current annual income would be the $40000. It does say 'current' and 'annual' so yes the full amount excluding her previous earnings in her last job that took place earlier in the year.

Exactly it's current - meaning expected income this year. I will repeat what I've said in several other threads. There have been several rfe's for ppl lately where they do not meet the requirements when stating an income that evidence does not support will be reached come end of 2017.

I was prior to that also under the same impression, that it should be income based on the salary for 12 months, but it's suppose to be what is anticipated to go on the 1040 total income line for 2018.

 

[lunarsol 0]

Thanks for your replies. I wish the USCIS made it a little clearer. “Annual income” to me implies that it’s your annual salary. Thankfully, for both scenarios we would be above the threshold - though it would look a lot better to put the $40,000 rather than the projected 2017 only amount.

 

We are hoping to be able to get an updated employer letter, however her boss is far from the most approachable of people so she is reluctant and he may not oblige… I wonder if we could get away with just the 4 months of pay stubs without the letter? Or is that too risky?

 

She is also very dis-satisfied with her current job and is hoping to look elsewhere soon. Just wondering if starting a brand new job, either just before or, more likely, soon after we file the AOS paperwork, will have any negative impact on our application. As long as her income continues above the required threshold, I assume it should be okay...?

 

Thanks!

[Suss&Camm 2,213]

3 minutes ago, lunarsol said:

Thanks for your replies. I wish the USCIS made it a little clearer. “Annual income” to me implies that it’s your annual salary. Thankfully, for both scenarios we would be above the threshold - though it would look a lot better to put the $40,000 rather than the projected 2017 only amount.

 

We are hoping to be able to get an updated employer letter, however her boss is far from the most approachable of people so she is reluctant and he may not oblige… I wonder if we could get away with just the 4 months of pay stubs without the letter? Or is that too risky?

 

She is also very dis-satisfied with her current job and is hoping to look elsewhere soon. Just wondering if starting a brand new job, either just before or, more likely, soon after we file the AOS paperwork, will have any negative impact on our application. As long as her income continues above the required threshold, I assume it should be okay...?

 

Thanks!

It's fine to change jobs - if you get an interview she can bring the updated documents there when the time comes. 

 

Here is a good link to read about filling out the i864 over all.

https://cliniclegal.org/resources/five-most-common-mistakes-completing-i-864

The part and item numbers are from an older form version but it's clear which item is adressed.

[Suss&Camm 2,213]

Is there an HR where she is? My husband went to the ppl that ran the books and send the paychecks where he worked... never spoke to boss.

Edited July 26, 2017 by Suss&Camm

[lunarsol 0]

Hello, thanks for your answers from a little while ago. So... my wife was able to get an employer letter successfully. We were planning on working out her expected 2017 income by calculating her YTD income so far, and then adding that to what she is expected to earn from now until the end of the year. 

However, here is where it may get a bit complicated, not sure if we are over complicating it.

 

- Until April of this year, she was self employed, and only has a bank statement to prove the income from Jan - April. So we have added up the total of this, and included the bank statement.

- Her current job is hourly, but is permanent/full time and she supposed to be working 40 hours a week (at $20 an hour). However she is not payed for time off, so there is some inconsistency during the last few months when she has had a few days off and thus worked less than 40 hours a week. We have taken her YTD amount from her paystub and added this to the previous "self employed" amount. 

- She could potentially work 40 hours a week, and is supposed to, so we have calculated her expected income from now until end the year based on this assumption. (She is also supposed to be becoming salaried soon.)

- Her employer letter has her salary annualised based on 40 hours a week, so states $41,600.

 

I'm hoping this is correct and we won't get an RFE. I shouldn't imagine we would, given that her employer letter states her salary is well above the threshold. I just hope they aren't confused by the way we have calculated her expected income for the I-864 form. What do you think?

Thanks!!!!

Edited September 5, 2017 by lunarsol

[amyNJ 13]

Honestly, it sounds like you guys did it way more complicated than it should be, but if it works for you, great! 
My husband also got a recent job when we were filling the papers, he got it by september last year and we sent everything at the beginning of January. 
We just added the employer letter saying he was full-time employee, title, and annual income. 
And a couple of pay stubs (the ones he kept, because he didn't keep every single pay stub). 
We never received a RFE. 

Maybe the important most important thing to add is the taxes, in my husband taxes for the last 3 years you could see the increase in his income. 
I guess that is important for USCIS. 

 

[CaroLeh 15]

In this scenario, did you file as ONLY JOINT Sponsor or as 1 our of 2 (aka the sponsor and the intending immigrant)?! 

[SoQueen 0]

I have seen your post and I was wondering if you could give me a little bit of hope. 
My husband and sponsor made a mistake filling the I-864 in the "Current Annual Income", he reported more because that wasn't clear for him... (He got a new job last June)
Do you know what we should do to correct the mistake? Should we just wait to get an RFE? 

Thank you so so much if you can answer this question!!!!

[K + M 47]

On 11/15/2019 at 9:31 AM, SoQueen said:

I have seen your post and I was wondering if you could give me a little bit of hope. 
My husband and sponsor made a mistake filling the I-864 in the "Current Annual Income", he reported more because that wasn't clear for him... (He got a new job last June)
Do you know what we should do to correct the mistake? Should we just wait to get an RFE? 

Thank you so so much if you can answer this question!!!!

We are in the process of constructing our RFE response right now and sending it in soon, (we are getting a joint sponsor), and we also made mistakes on our original I-864, mistakes we made were put a $0 for 2nd most recent tax year income when it should of not been $0, and we stated the whole annual income when for current annual individual income that means the anticipated income to be made in the year, and I (the USC) didn't start this job until Jan 19th, so we calculated how much I earn from Jan 1st-Jan 18th and are subtracting that amount from the annual salary to give a correct 'current annual individual income'.  We are making both these updates, and will send in a new I-864 updated and changed with our RFE Response, along with a detailed letter explaining the changes that were made and why. 

 

So if you get an RFE I would suggest making the change on a new I-864 and write a letter explaining the changes you made and why.

 

Hope this helps!

Edited December 19, 2019 by Kerri and Myles