I-864, Part 6, Income Tax Return

[Laima 0]

Hi all! We're just filling the I-864 and came to a bit of a limbo with part 6 🥴

 

My husband (the petitioner) is filing the most recent (2020) year taxes, has filed for 2019, but not for the 2018, since we were traveling and he wasn't working that year.

 

Soooo, should we mark 23.a (have you filed a Federal income tax return for each of the three most tax years) as a NO? 

23.b. We would tick, since we're submitted tax return transcripts of 2019 and 2020, right?

24.c. 3rd most recent (2018) would have Total Income and NONE.

25. Would not be ticked off, since only 1 out 3 years was not required to file.

 

🙏 I would greatly appreciate some help, as this one is a little tricky with 1 yr of tax return missing and would it want to mess it up because of 1-2 boxes being incorrect.. 🤦‍♀️

 

[Crazy Cat 41,834]

I would mark "No" to 23a.  Then for the total income box for 2018, just write "Income did not meet threshold for filing".  You must either enter the income total from your tax returns for each of all 3 years for which you filed....or the reason you were not required to file for each year.  

You are required to attach the transcript or copy of tax return for only the most recent year.

 

Edited February 16, 2021 by Lucky Cat

[sohaib27015 0]

On 2/16/2021 at 10:58 PM, Laima said:

Hi all! We're just filling the I-864 and came to a bit of a limbo with part 6 🥴

 

My husband (the petitioner) is filing the most recent (2020) year taxes, has filed for 2019, but not for the 2018, since we were traveling and he wasn't working that year.

 

Soooo, should we mark 23.a (have you filed a Federal income tax return for each of the three most tax years) as a NO? 

23.b. We would tick, since we're submitted tax return transcripts of 2019 and 2020, right?

24.c. 3rd most recent (2018) would have Total Income and NONE.

25. Would not be ticked off, since only 1 out 3 years was not required to file.

 

🙏 I would greatly appreciate some help, as this one is a little tricky with 1 yr of tax return missing and would it want to mess it up because of 1-2 boxes being incorrect.. 🤦‍♀️

 

We have similar situation. What did you do and did it get accepted. Did you provide letter of explanation or explained reason for not filing at the end of the form. 

[lovinglive 24]

On 7/27/2022 at 3:04 PM, sohaib27015 said:

We have similar situation. What did you do and did it get accepted. Did you provide letter of explanation or explained reason for not filing at the end of the form. 

You have to tell the truth so 23A is NO.

 

If you didn't file for some reason in previous years, you can either put the actual earnings (in the case that they were very low and didn't require filing) or 0 if there were no earnings.

 

Then you can put an explanation in the end where there is a section to provide explanation by page, section, item, etc.

 

It's not illegal to have no earnings so there is no reason to hide it.

[sohaib27015 0]

25 minutes ago, lovinglive said:

You have to tell the truth so 23A is NO.

 

If you didn't file for some reason in previous years, you can either put the actual earnings (in the case that they were very low and didn't require filing) or 0 if there were no earnings.

 

Then you can put an explanation in the end where there is a section to provide explanation by page, section, item, etc.

 

It's not illegal to have no earnings so there is no reason to hide it.

Thanks. Also, how did you respond to question 25? Did you check it or not? 

[lovinglive 24]

7 minutes ago, sohaib27015 said:

Thanks. Also, how did you respond to question 25? Did you check it or not? 

I actually filed for all three years.  Q25 is actually a little unclear, because for example, you filed for two years but not for the third year.  The question should say "I was not required to file... for one or more years...".  In any case, even if it was only one year out of three, I would still check box 25, and then provide an explanation and some kind of proof.

 

More important question is, if you didn't have any income for one of the recent  years, will USCIS think that your income is sufficient to support the person you are petitioning for?