JimWahers1993

Thanks folks, Sent them an email! 
Very happy. Thought I would be waiting until September. 
Now I just need to read back through this entire thread for all the watch outs 🙂

Congrats on the interview date! They have certainly gotten through their backlog ❤️ 

I had that same issue with registering my appointment - there is an email address mentioned during that step that you can email to tell them your case number is not ready and they will unblock your number so you can register, they fixed it fairly quickly for me.

For spouses the medical results are sent directly to the embassy I think roughly 10 ten days after the medical - i'm guessing the embassy needs the medical results by the day of the interview, otherwise they will issue the visa once they receive them.

****Moved to Tax and Finances During US Immigration******
 
Option 1- She can file as "Married-Filing Separately".  She enters "NRA" in the box for spouse SSN, then she mails the return to the IRS.
Option- 2  She can a joint return, but she must include the documents for your ITIN along with her tax return.  This is a little more complicated.
 
If you and she file a joint return (Option 2), then world-wide income from both spouses must be reported.
 

If the foreign spouse has significant income, option #2 could create a larger tax liability since world-wide income must be reported for both spouses.  However, option #2 could be advantageous if the foreign spouse had little or no foreign income since the spouse deduction would apply.  Option #1 requires only the income from the US citizen to be reported.
In my personal case, I chose Option #1 for tax years 2015 and 2016 since my wife has significant foreign income and there is no tax treaty between the US and Taiwan.  I simply hand-wrote "NRA" in box for spouse SSN, then I mailed the return to the IRS......reporting ONLY my personal income (filing separately).   
 
Yeah, it can get complicated.

We went with option #2 and in our particular circumstances married filing jointly quite literally makes our tax return $10,100 greater than if I filed married filing separately.  like if I go in TurboTax and check off the MFJ check box, the refund score ticker goes up $10,100 but if I check off the MFS check box the refund score ticker goes down $10,100.  I think realistically my wife and stepdaughter will not be able to immigrate until at least some time in 2022😔 so it is quite probable this same scenario will play out again for the 2021 tax year.  Meaning by the time they ever get a visa it would make over $20,000 difference in our returns whether I file jointly or separately.     As noted, other couple's situations may not have nearly the same impact or even have a a very adverse impact depending on their specific circumstances.  But when the differences can potentially be that substantial, it seems very prudent to actually sit down and take the extra time to run the numbers both ways and find out what works best and how much difference it actually makes.  
 
In our case, filing for the ITIN to get the $10,100 larger return required about 10 minutes extra paperwork and my wife had to stop by the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs office in her neighborhood and obtain a certified passport copy at the cost of about $3 so that we did not have to send in her actual passport. 
 

Just so OP know about options, if you feel it is a hassle to go through ITIN process, you can go with MFS for now. Once your spouse immigrates you can amend your prior year (up to 3 years) tax returns from MFS to MFJ and get all owed returns back. So you won't be losing your potential returns, just will be getting back a bit late. Did I mention IRS pays the interest as well on those returns. I did that for 2 prior years when my wife immigrated.

Timeline Question
Hi Everyone,

This is my first time posting here so apologies if I'm asking in the wrong area or if timeline questions are posted elsewhere. 
 
I became documentarily qualified on the 19th of May 2021 for a CR-1 visa. I believe I'm now waiting to hear from the Dublin Embassy on an interview date. 
 
Does anyone have experience or know what general time frame I'm looking at between DQ and Hearing back from the embassy. 

I know all these dates are completely up in the air, but I'm cautiously hopefully people have started to get more consistency from the embassy within the last couple of months. 
 
Thanks in advance
 
***EDIT***
Right after I posted this I seen the icon to look at peoples timelines.
Looks like 3 months. 
Can people tell me what Embassy received stands for? 

Timeline Question
Hi Everyone,

This is my first time posting here so apologies if I'm asking in the wrong area or if timeline questions are posted elsewhere. 
 
I became documentarily qualified on the 19th of May 2021 for a CR-1 visa. I believe I'm now waiting to hear from the Dublin Embassy on an interview date. 
 
Does anyone have experience or know what general time frame I'm looking at between DQ and Hearing back from the embassy. 

I know all these dates are completely up in the air, but I'm cautiously hopefully people have started to get more consistency from the embassy within the last couple of months. 
 
Thanks in advance
 
***EDIT***
Right after I posted this I seen the icon to look at peoples timelines.
Looks like 3 months. 
Can people tell me what Embassy received stands for?