My husband and I just turned in our I 130, and recieved packet 2, the affidavits of support (I 864). Since I have been in my husbands country of residence for the past 7 months, and have only worked for one year in the past 3 tax years, the consular told me to fill out the form, but also to write a letter explaining why I do not have tax information for the past 3 years and to have a joint sponsor. Has anyone else here had to write a letter like that?

During the year that you worked, did you make very little money? If you made more than the filing threshold for your tax bracket (sometimes as little as $3,000 USD) then you had to file a tax return even though you wouldn't owe any taxes.

If you did make very little, then the letter is really simple and I bet someone will be along to post an example.

In our case, we needed a letter of unemployment explanation for AOS in USA. In that letter my husband put the reason for which he didn't work in previous years. We submited aditional documents wich shows dates that he was doing another thing instead of work (school records abroad). I think that you can explain your reason and provide passport stamps or another thing that you have for prove that you weren't working while you were living abroad.

This is really just a technicality. US citizens are required to file tax returns every year regardless of where they are living or what they are earning. So if you haven't for any reason they need to know why. Your reason is obviously because you have not been working, so your statement would simply indicate that the reason that you do not have a copy of a tax return for the most recent tax year to accompany your form is becasue you have been unemployed and you have been unemployed for "..........insert reason here......".

I assume you will not be using income to meet your sponsorship requirement? Also, you will need to prove that you maintain domicile in the US as you are no longer resident there. That will need to be included in your statement. I'm currently trying to get all of this in order as well.

Good Luck.

My husband had to write a letter like that for our I-864. It sounded somewhat like this:


"I, __________ am not able to provide tax returns for the tax years 2005, 2006 and 2007. My gross income for those years fell below the income requirements for filing a federal tax return. Therefore I did not file a tax return with the IRS and have no tax records for those years."


Very simple, nothing fancy and they accepted it no problem and no questions asked.