Filing US taxes... help!

[Mikiek 0]

I am a US citizen and have been living and working in the UK for almost 3 years.

I recently married a UK citizen and we are working on the visa process to go back to the US together. As a part of the DS-230 I need to fill out form I-864, Affidavit of Support, to prove that I make enough money to support the both of us (I will continue to work for my current employer when I return to the US). The form is asking for information from IRS taxes, but I have not filed since I moved here. I have only just found out that I have too

I have half of 2005, all of 2006 and 2007 to file. We have looked at websites for help in completing this but find it very complicated and dont want this to slow down our DCF application.

We emailed a company in London for assistance but they want £600 - £900 per year, so that's a bill of upto £2,700!!!

Anyone know of anyone that can help for a reasonable fee? Or any good website that we can read to try to understand it so we can file ourselves?

Many thanks for all your advice...

Thanks,

Mikiek's wife, Alison

[gwenneh 7]

If you're close to London, then go directly to the IRS office at the embassy. They're very willing to help! You can also phone them.

If not, buy copies of Turbotax for those years and it will walk you through it. Between the IRS and Turbotax I was able to file without a problem.

[elmcitymaven 9,711]

Those fees those guys quoted you were daylight robbery! I hadn't filed for 12 years, but I completed three years of backfiling over last Easter weekend. Not my dream way to spend a four-day weekend, but I filed them with no problems. Gwen is right -- call the London IRS office. Those guys are patient, informative and understand that US citizens are often ignorant about needing to file when they live abroad.

You'll need 1040s for 2005/6/7, and forms 2555-EZ for the same years; you can download at least some of these, and the others the IRS folk wll post to you. Read the instructions carefully, sit down with your P60s for the years covered (remember that the UK and US tax years are different, so you will need to tease out what you earned during the calendar year in question) and use a pencil at first! It's highly unlikely that you will have any tax liability, as you would have had to have earned over $82,500 (I think that's this year's limit) in the UK AFTER adjustments. You will still need to report any US-based income.

You can do this!