My father-in-law (FIL) is married, and at the moment, my FIL is also the sole petitioner for his adult son. Currently, the intent is to just file a I-864 for my FIL, and submit. However, my FIL's tax returns are filed jointly with his second wife, and his most stable form of income is rental income for properties that he shares with his wife. The rental income is above 125% of the poverty guideline for the current year, and the 2 most recent tax returns.
Do I need to divide the rental income by half to demonstrate his current individual income in part 6 #7? Does it even matter? The 1040 tax returns obviously doesn't require this division since they file tax returns jointly.
If I start dividing assets and joint income this way, then my FIL annual income will certainly fall below the income requirement, and we'll have to provide additional documents. I think either by using assets, or filing a I-864A to pledge for household member income from my FIL's second wife.
Thank you for replying. Yes that's correct: petitioner = USC / LPR father in law AND beneficiary = adult son outside US. The wife is working at the moment, but my general perception is that it's cleaner (and less messy) to have a sole petitioner if possible. The FIL wants to use the income from the rental as his source of income - it's the main source of consistent income - and it should be enough if he doesn't have to worry about separating the income.