K1 AOS - I-864 RFE initial evidence. Advice please

[CaLi90 56]

3 minutes ago, Wuozopo said:

@CaLi90

 

Did you fill out this box on your I-864. Any other in that section? Are you still self-employed today?

We did not check that box as currently only employed.

[Wuozopo 4,293]

5 minutes ago, CaLi90 said:

We will be filing our next return as soon as we get the w2, I'm not sure whether it's better to wait for that transcript, that shows 68k and is only from a single employment (no self employment).

 

When we sent off 2020s, there were 4 different w2's so I don't know if it's less confusing for them to send the new with just the one employment.

 You may need more than the W2 before you can file. You may earn interest at the bank so also need a 1099 before filing. The point being some documents for filing do not come until close to the end of January. Then if you want a transcript, that may take some time to be available.  
 

Do you have plenty of time before the RFE deadline to respond?

 

Will your tax return for 2020 have only one employer, one W2, and no income from self employment in 2020?
 

 

 

 

[CaLi90 56]

11 minutes ago, Wuozopo said:

 You may need more than the W2 before you can file. You may earn interest at the bank so also need a 1099 before filing. The point being some documents for filing do not come until close to the end of January. Then if you want a transcript, that may take some time to be available.  
 

Do you have plenty of time before the RFE deadline to respond?

 

Will your tax return for 2020 have only one employer, one W2, and no income from self employment in 2020?
 

 

 

 

In 2020 it had 4 different incomes. 

 

If you mean 2021, yes for this it will only be one employer, one w2, and no self employment income. 

 

I have until 24th march to respond to the RFE.

[Wuozopo 4,293]

36 minutes ago, CaLi90 said:

In 2020 it had 4 different incomes. 

 

If you mean 2021, yes for this it will only be one employer, one w2, and no self employment income. 

 

I have until 24th march to respond to the RFE.

Yes I meant 2021. That will certainly be less cluttered evidence. It will set you back on your AOS timeline.

 

If I saw your entire I-864 as submitted I might could offer a reason for rejection. Just seeing that bit of your transcript indicating self employment brings up possible problems. There’s just too many things that I want to ask and this forum is inefficient asking one thing at a time.. 

Edited January 2, 2022 by Wuozopo

[CaLi90 56]

1 hour ago, Wuozopo said:

Yes I meant 2021. That will certainly be less cluttered evidence. It will set you back on your AOS timeline.

 

If I saw your entire I-864 as submitted I might could offer a reason for rejection. Just seeing that bit of your transcript indicating self employment brings up possible problems. There’s just too many things that I want to ask and this forum is inefficient asking one thing at a time.. 

i-864_ca-blacked-out.pdf

[CaLi90 56]

1 hour ago, Wuozopo said:

Yes I meant 2021. That will certainly be less cluttered evidence. It will set you back on your AOS timeline.

 

If I saw your entire I-864 as submitted I might could offer a reason for rejection. Just seeing that bit of your transcript indicating self employment brings up possible problems. There’s just too many things that I want to ask and this forum is inefficient asking one thing at a time.. 

I have attached a copy. I did notice that the amount for 2020 was written down for an amount 71 dollars lower than the total income.

 

Hopefully we will get our tax info soon, so we can file and download that transcript as I admit it is less confusing for the officer to have one income. And if I do this, I will submit 3 amounts that are more than 3rd most recent tax year. I don't know if that helps.

[Wuozopo 4,293]

4 hours ago, CaLi90 said:

I have attached a copy. I did notice that the amount for 2020 was written down for an amount 71 dollars lower than the total income.

 

Hopefully we will get our tax info soon, so we can file and download that transcript as I admit it is less confusing for the officer to have one income. And if I do this, I will submit 3 amounts that are more than 3rd most recent tax year. I don't know if that helps.

yes, that helps because I was wondering if you had somehow included names for those other W2 providers. 

i see nothing wrong with your form as long as your optional employment letter says your current annual income is $70,735.  You shouldn’t claim more than is proven on paper (employment letter). If your employer said $70,00, then you say $70,000. Don’t claim  a penny more than you have written proof for. 
 

And you said you provided pay slips. If they are monthly, those should each show gross income of around $5895 to prove a yearly income of $70735. Otherwise they don’t help to prove your claimed income. 

 

All you have to do is exceed the poverty level for a family of 4 which is $33,125. You don’t get more approved by reporting double that amount. So check your proofs (employer letter and pay slips) and dial back your “My annual income…” if it exceeds the proof(s) you submit. 
 

Check those and I will write more later on how I would respond to the RFE.

 

 Now one more headache for your 2021 return. You will file jointly and that’s going to be a bit more com

 

[CaLi90 56]

2 hours ago, Wuozopo said:

yes, that helps because I was wondering if you had somehow included names for those other W2 providers. 

i see nothing wrong with your form as long as your optional employment letter says your current annual income is $70,735.  You shouldn’t claim more than is proven on paper (employment letter). If your employer said $70,00, then you say $70,000. Don’t claim  a penny more than you have written proof for. 
 

And you said you provided pay slips. If they are monthly, those should each show gross income of around $5895 to prove a yearly income of $70735. Otherwise they don’t help to prove your claimed income. 

 

All you have to do is exceed the poverty level for a family of 4 which is $33,125. You don’t get more approved by reporting double that amount. So check your proofs (employer letter and pay slips) and dial back your “My annual income…” if it exceeds the proof(s) you submit. 
 

Check those and I will write more later on how I would respond to the RFE.

 

 Now one more headache for your 2021 return. You will file jointly and that’s going to be a bit more com

 

Thank you for all the information.

 

Yes all 4 w2's were submitted.

 

Ok that's good to know. I have double checked the employment letter with the amount 70,735 and it matches exactly. So that's all ok. 

 

As for the pay stubs, she gets two per month, one on 15th and one on 30th of each month, for the first 8 months, she earned $2,780 twice per month ($5,560pm) and her income from the same job increased to over $2,900 ($5,800pm) from September to now and from the last pay stub it shows over $68k total for 2021, so closer to the yearly salary $70,735. Her pay rises are every August as she is a teacher so even though her current salary raised to $70,735, that is from August to August, hence why her total for this year will come to just over $68k.

 

For the taxes, we have looked into and have decided to file married filing separately, so that I can do dual status for my taxes. We had advice from an accountant and that's the way we will go with that. If we file MFS, should be less complicated. Is that correct?

 

Thanks again.

Edited January 3, 2022 by CaLi90

[Wuozopo 4,293]

@CaLi90

 

You have to prove current income so the “before pay raise” paychecks don’t matter. The current pay checks from September on will not prove $70,735 per year. 

She gets 24 paychecks per year.

$2900 x 24 = $69,600. 
And don’t round off. You said “over $2900”. Be precise. 

I would revise the I-864 to state My current income is $69,600. That’s plenty to qualify. Then you have pay stubs and an employer letter that verify that amount. 
 

So this is what I would send right now and stacked in this order.

• The RFE sheets they say include. (Make a copy to keep for your records)
• A new I-864 claiming current income is $69,600 with everything else the same as before.
• 2020 tax return transcript (no W2s with it)
• The employer letter.
• 8 pay stubs (Sept-Dec) with an explanation. “Enclosed are 8 pay stubs reflecting my pay raise in August 2020 that show I currently earn $29xx.xx bimonthly.  $2,9xx.xx X 24 pay periods per year = $69,xxx.xx per year.” Then start photocopying the 8pay stubs below that statement and onto additional pages if you can fit several on a page.

That will clearly show the earnings are enough. The hodgepodge you sent before with all the pages of the tax return and four W2s probably just confused the worker who checked it. This will be a nice clean I-864 packet with two of the optional things that that prove the $69,600 you will claim. 

 

[CaLi90 56]

1 hour ago, Wuozopo said:

@CaLi90

 

You have to prove current income so the “before pay raise” paychecks don’t matter. The current pay checks from September on will not prove $70,735 per year. 

She gets 24 paychecks per year.

$2900 x 24 = $69,600. 
And don’t round off. You said “over $2900”. Be precise. 

I would revise the I-864 to state My current income is $69,600. That’s plenty to qualify. Then you have pay stubs and an employer letter that verify that amount. 
 

So this is what I would send right now and stacked in this order.

• The RFE sheets they say include. (Make a copy to keep for your records)
• A new I-864 claiming current income is $69,600 with everything else the same as before.
• 2020 tax return transcript (no W2s with it)
• The employer letter.
• 8 pay stubs (Sept-Dec) with an explanation. “Enclosed are 8 pay stubs reflecting my pay raise in August 2020 that show I currently earn $29xx.xx bimonthly.  $2,9xx.xx X 24 pay periods per year = $69,xxx.xx per year.” Then start photocopying the 8pay stubs below that statement and onto additional pages if you can fit several on a page.

That will clearly show the earnings are enough. The hodgepodge you sent before with all the pages of the tax return and four W2s probably just confused the worker who checked it. This will be a nice clean I-864 packet with two of the optional things that that prove the $69,600 you will claim. 

 

Thank you for all the helpful information. Sorry I wasn't precise, I only had the earlier pay stub amounts Infront of me at the time. The exact amount on each current pay stub since September is $2,947.30 twice per month, so calculating that, it works out to $70,735 per year which matches the employment letter salary. Should I get an updated employment letter as the other is dated end of November? Also should this have a wet signature? The other I had was photocopied as the employer sent it by email after he signed it.

 

That sounds good, I will include that information so they know it's bi-monthly and the amounts. The pay stubs are each full pages which is annoying as I understand that it's alot of pages for them to go through. 

 

I will assemble it exactly how you have explained it, I really appreciate all the advice and clarity on things. I was quite happy originally submitting but receiving an initial RFE I want to have the right response that will help the case, so thank you so much for helping with that.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by CaLi90

[Wuozopo 4,293]

16 minutes ago, CaLi90 said:

The exact amount on each current pay stub since September is $2,947.30 twice per month, so calculating that, it works out to $70,735 per year which matches the employment letter salary.

Great. Then you can keep the salary earnings you had originally. 

 

17 minutes ago, CaLi90 said:

Should I get an updated employment letter as the other is dated end of November? Also should this have a wet signature? The other I had was photocopied as the employer sent it by email after he signed it.

I don’t think it’s too old but a wet signature might make it more impressive. 
 

I think your RFE was a mistake but the workers there are not necessarily mathematicians. The new submission will be more obvious to them. 

 

[CaLi90 56]

Just now, Wuozopo said:

Great. Then you can keep the salary earnings you had originally. 

 

I don’t think it’s too old but a wet signature might make it more impressive. 
 

I think your RFE was a mistake but the workers there are not necessarily mathematicians. The new submission will be more obvious to them. 

 

Perfect, thank you.

 

Your advice on assembling the i-864 and supporting documents is alot more straight forward, even if all the information was there before, yours definitely sounds more clear for them to understand. I appreciate your knowledge 👍🏻.

 

Thank you 🙂

[Rocio0010 5,579]

I knew @Wuozopowas the guy to ask!

[Wuozopo 4,293]

18 hours ago, CaLi90 said:

For the taxes, we have looked into and have decided to file married filing separately, so that I can do dual status for my taxes. We had advice from an accountant and that's the way we will go with that. If we file MFS, should be less complicated. Is that correct?

Now some comments on your taxes.  I don’t know what you mean by “so that I can do dual status for my taxes.”  What status do you mean?  I don’t think that category of filing fits you.
 

You are the beneficiary, right?  You entered this country Oct 1 and have no US income so you don’t have any obligation to file a US return. I may have misunderstood your post, but it sounded like you both were going to file Married Filing Separately. 

 

Before I discuss Married filing jointly, can you tell me if you managed to get a SSN while you were eligible during your first 76 days in the country?
 

 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by Wuozopo

[CaLi90 56]

15 minutes ago, Wuozopo said:

Now some comments on your taxes.  I don’t know what you mean by “so that I can do dual status for my taxes.”  What status do you mean?  I don’t think that category of filing fits you.
 

You are the beneficiary, right?  You entered this country Oct 1 and have no US income so you don’t have any obligation to file a US return. I may have misunderstood your post, but it sounded like you both were going to file Married Filing Separately. 

 

Before I discuss Married filing jointly, can you tell me if you managed to get a SSN while you were eligible during your first 76 days in the country?
 

 

 

 

I see, I was advised that I still had to file to show what I had earned from the UK but not to file married filing jointly as it would re-tax my worldwide income for the months I had income back in the UK, prior to me arriving.

 

I did not manage to get a SSN in those days as we got married 7 days after I arrived, so have asked it be processed with my petition.

 

I am the beneficiary, yes.

 

I'd love to hear if you have any info on that if you are happy to share.

 

If I don't have to file, then my partner is better off filing jointly?