JKLSemicolon

My opinion is that both the Foreign Tax Credit and the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion are pretty straightforward with any of the guided tax software providers out there. I certainly wouldn’t avoid doing either out of fear of an audit, but if you are uncomfortable with the DIY approach you could always hire a professional tax preparer. Edit: and the way to prepare for an audit, were one ever to happen, is to just make sure you have documentation to back up whatever you entered on the return. In the past I have even written digital notes to myself explaining my reasoning for entering certain things the way I did were a question ever to come up (which it so far never has).

I mentioned this to the OP over private message but will include it here for everyone’s benefit: when we went through a similar situation, I (the USC and eventual 1-130 petitioner) sent a letter to USCIS letting them know that my wife left the country for personal reasons before Advanced Parole was was available and that we would be pursuing a spousal visa instead. I kept the letter very brief but my reasoning was not to waste their time reviewing a case that was abandoned. They sent a prompt response which, in my opinion, would not have come as quickly if at all had I not reached out first, and I included a copy of my letter and that response as one of the supplemental attachments when filing the I-130 online. However, that’s certainly not required and at the time was not the prevailing advice on VJ.

If you have already made up your mind that’s fine, but based on that you would definitely qualify for the Foreign Earned Income exclusion and the qualifying period that would allow you to exclude the most income would be something like July 28, 2023 to July 27, 2024. During that time the physical presence test would be met since the time spent in the US during that period would be the 31 days from April 1 to May 1, 2024 making the time outside of the US 365 - 31 = 334 days. Using this period, the number of qualifying days in tax year 2024 would be 209 (January 1 to July 27) and the maximum income possible to exclude would be (209/365)*$120,000 = $68,712. Just for comparison, using a qualifying period of April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024 would also obviously meet the physical presence test, but in that case the maximum income possible to exclude would be 91/365 * $120,000 = $29,918. And obviously there are any number of qualifying periods in between. Typically when qualifying for both the FEIE and the Foreign Tax Credit, one would want to compare the two and see how your return is impacted using one versus the other.

And what about in 2023? We need to know both years to consider the possible 12-month periods ending in tax year 2024. Also, when did she become a permanent resident? Your timeline is empty. 1 and 2 are very important points but I would argue that claiming the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion using the physical presence test does not constitute calling yourself a nonresident alien on a tax return, as long as they are filing jointly (which implies being treated as a resident for tax purposes).

Assuming the period used to meet the physical presence test is something like March 1, 2023 to February 28, 2024, the total income possible to exclude would have to be prorated by the number of days in 2024 that she spent outside the US. So going with the above, say she spent ~60 days (Jan/Feb) outside the US in 2024 before moving. The max FEIE is something like $120k, so in this case the prorated exclusion possible would be something like (60/365)*$120,000 = about $20,000. If she only worked in January that almost surely means she can exclude all of her foreign income. Most tax software will walk you through the steps you need to get this right as long as you know what 12-month period you are using to meet the physical presence test. Not sure if you qualify for any of the IRS free filing options with third party software?

It’s hard to answer your question because we don’t have all the information. I don’t know the significance of the May 2 date you picked. We’re talking about the 2024 tax return, right? To give you a definitive answer you’ll need to list all the dates she was in the US for 2023 and 2024 (assuming we’re talking the 2024 tax return).

Certified copy means certified by the issuing agency, i.e. whatever agency in your mother’s home country issued the passport, birth certificate, etc. Each agency will usually have their own procedures for how to obtain these. Edit: from the W-7 instructions: https://www.irs.gov/instructions/iw7#en_US_202311_publink100046802 Certified copies. You can submit copies of original documents if you do any of the following. Have the copies certified by the issuing agency. Have the officers at U.S. embassies and consulates overseas provide certification and authentication services. Contact the Consular Section, American Citizens Services of the U.S. Embassy or Consulate in advance to determine the hours of operation for these services.

Read the detailed instructions for the FEIE here, especially the Physical Presence Test section: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/foreign-earned-income-exclusion-physical-presence-test In particular, this part may still apply: You meet the physical presence test if you are physically present in a foreign country or countries 330 full days during any period of 12 consecutive months including some part of the year at issue. The 330 qualifying days do not have to be consecutive. Also of note: Full day A full day is a period of 24 consecutive hours, beginning and ending at midnight. You must spend the full day in a foreign country or countries for that day to be counted. When you leave the United States to go to a foreign country or when you return to the United States from a foreign country, the time you spend on or over international waters does not count as time in a foreign country. I would recommend making a spreadsheet of the date ranges she was in the US versus out and seeing if there is a 12-month period that meets that criterion for you. That’s what we did when using the FEIE.

We kept these instructions in mind and submitted monthly statements. For some cards there was no activity for certain months so no statements were generated; in those cases we added a placeholder for that month explaining why there was no statement included. We also printed everything one-sided. We had over 800 pages of evidence for the initial submission and had no concerns about that given the bolded part of the instructions above.

Our approach is that if there is conditional wording on the question like “if applicable” or “if you answered yes to question X” and we don’t meet the condition, we leave it blank. Otherwise, we use N/A.

Transcripts only show both names when it’s a joint return, which is why in this case a copy of the return plus the transcript is stronger evidence than the transcript alone.

For #2, if her 2022 tax return shows her as married and lists your name, it could have value as evidence of a bonafide marriage. Otherwise, no. Edited to add: I’m assuming the return is in English in this case. For s case where the foreign tax return needed to be translated, I would not see that as worth the trouble. #1 looks like the same question you have asked and had answered in other threads, but just to repeat my earlier answer: you could submit the copy of the return (which has both your names on it) along with the IRS transcript (which, although it doesn’t have her name, proves the return was actually filed and accepted by the IRS).

If/when applying for a fiancee visa or the (in my opinion) far superior spousal visa, you should absolutely have plenty of proof ready to submit - flight receipts, boarding passes, passport stamps, respective credit card statements with transactions in the same place and time, etc. - of your trips to visit one another (emphasis mine because that’s the purpose of the B2 visa).

Nothing wrong with including monthly statements either (that’s what we did).

Congrats! Please fill out your VJ timeline as the data will help others.

Congratulations! Please fill out your timeline as the data will help others.

Not everyone is given an online account number (my wife wasn’t). Those who have one usually get it assigned on one of the Notice of Action documents mailed to them. It’s always important to keep copies of these documents, but if the question is where to get the online account number if one no longer has the NOA where it first appeared, I don’t have an answer to that. Various sources on the internet claim that you can find it somewhere on your myUSCIS account but I’ve never seen an actual screenshot proving that. But my previous post that you quoted was more about why the online account number may not be needed. To return to that point with a specific example for my wife: 1. We created her myUSCIS account to pay the immigrant fee before she entered on her newly-issued CR-1 visa. 2. Two years later when sending in the I-751, we left the USCIS Online Account Number field blank on the form, as she was never assigned one. 3. Once received, the I-751 case appeared on her myUSCIS account without us having to do anything to add it. But that’s only one data point and others’ experiences could be different.

Chase also generates a letter (both paper and electronic) confirming the change when you add an authorized user. We included those in our initial evidence along with copies of the cards and statements (blacking out all but the last 4 digits of the card number).

Yes, since the instructions say to include evidence starting from the date of marriage, the first year’s return is relevant. Like I mentioned earlier, I would still include the transcript (as that proves that the IRS accepted it) along with the complete return which connects the dots to your MFS filing status.

Others will disagree, but since the I-751 instructions essentially say to submit as much evidence as necessary to establish that the marriage was entered in good faith, I wouldn’t worry about how much is “too much”. For our part, we sent in about 80 photos with the initial submission, 4 to a page and captioned only with date and location. If you look at my post history you will also see that we have continued to upload additional unsolicited evidence, including more photos, every few months.

I see your timeline shows that you did the CR1 process. Your mileage may vary, but if the immigrant beneficiary already had a myUSCIS account that was used to pay the USCIS immigrant fee, it’s possible that the case will be added there even if no online account number was included on the form (keep in mind that not everyone is assigned such a number). Good luck. Edit: that is if I am reading your post correctly that you can access the account but just didn’t have the online account number.

For consistency it might be worthwhile to include the transcripts for all years, plus whatever additional documents you want to include for 2022. You mention filing jointly in 2022 but are you sure the status wasn’t married filing separatly? If filing jointly you would have had to submit a paper return along with form W-7, supporting documents, and a statement from both of you requesting she be treated as a resident for tax purposes. This is not something an accountant could have done the way you described. Also, if you had filed jointly both of you would have appeared on the return transcript (I know because we did this our first year).

I agree with this. While USCIS’s own examples mention the possibility of filing as soon as the window opens even under similar circumstances, @OldUser makes a good point that the 5-year travel history on the form will be much less questionable if waiting until 5 years after the return date from the long absence. If I were in that situation, waiting an additional 90 days would be worth it to feel more confident and less stressed about the process.

Good eye. It appears that not all the info out there is up to date. In that case I would defer to the form instructions which mention 90 days: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/forms/n-400instr.pdf

Correct, although the standard recommendation is to wait until at least a few days into that 6-month window just to be on the safe side.