bank statements / joint tax returns as evidence

[julesr 0]

I'm just assembling evidence right now. Question: do they expect me to include everything for a given piece of evidence, or just enough to establish what it is and that it shows a connection between my wife and I? e.g. lots of our bank statements are several pages in length, and I can't see any benefit in copying more than the first page; same with joint tax returns as 1040 first page shows both our names. But maybe the officials expect the whole of a document for it to count? What did some of you who've been through this process do?

Just for the record, I think I'm submitting copies of the following for evidence:

Bank statements for last two years, each 6 months

House deeds from purchase in 2008

Property tax letters for 2009 and 2010

House insurance policy letters (2009 and 2010)

Couple of recent joint electric bills

Couple of recent joint 'net/TV bills

Letter from when my wife and I did a sponsored walk thing

Letter from when my wife and I were rowing on a team in the local dragon boat event

Permission letter from girl scouts for our youngest daughter

Vets bills

School web page printout showing my wife as parent and me as step-parent for the kids

Couple of Christmas / anniversary cards from family overseas

Couple of photos of my wife and I

... hopefully that'll do the job!

cheers

Jules

[Anh map 2,098]

Comingling of finances and parenting are two biggies.

A full bank statement would show the activity of the account. The typical transactions that a married couple would incur. The first page would likely show beginning and ending balance (don't really know what yours shows).

The first page of a tax return does not include any signatures. So why would someone accept that as really yours? It's just a page with some info on it.

My two cents: use/waste the paper and give the adjudicating officer all the info. If the evidence is persuasive/convincing you may not get an interview. Worked that way for us.

Best of luck.

[Tom_Jim 40]

Submit a copy of your daughter's birth certificate as well.

[julesr 0]

Comingling of finances and parenting are two biggies.

A full bank statement would show the activity of the account. The typical transactions that a married couple would incur. The first page would likely show beginning and ending balance (don't really know what yours shows).

The first page of a tax return does not include any signatures. So why would someone accept that as really yours? It's just a page with some info on it.

My two cents: use/waste the paper and give the adjudicating officer all the info. If the evidence is persuasive/convincing you may not get an interview. Worked that way for us.

Best of luck.

Bank statement: interesting point. The USCIS I-751 guidelines just say 'financial records showing joint ownership of assets and joint responsibility for liabilities, such as joint savings ans checking accounts, ..." - it doesn't actually explicitly say they want any transaction history, too, so it wasn't something I'd thought of. I'm not sure what it would usefully show them, either, other than a bunch of stuff that either of us could have bought - maybe I'll include 'em all anyway (I was just trying to avoid drowning them in paper!)

Tax returns: Hmm. I suppose a page with some info on it and a signature could just as easily be fake (my assumption was they'd use the info from the return and go poke the IRS to make sure it was genuine, but maybe they don't go to that level of detail). Our signatures were all done with an electronic gadget at our tax preparer's office this year, so the 2010 one doesn't have our signatures on any of the pages (although looking back, 2008-year didn't either, so perhaps that's normal policy). Maybe I'll get chance to go in tomorrow and see them...

(re. interviews, I think I saw somewhere that it's supposedly random as to whether you get called or not, not based upon the evidence. Whether that's true, I don't know!)

cheers

Jules

[julesr 0]

Submit a copy of your daughter's birth certificate as well.

Ahh, sorry - she's my wife's biological daughter, but not mine (I'm really bad at putting 'step-' in for the kids as I think of them as my own!)

cheers

J.

[rnqueen 0]

DONT FORGET TAX TRANSCRIPTS AND JOINT HELATH INSURANCE AND CREDIT CARD STATEMENT AND AFFADAVITS FROM 2 FAMILY OR FREINDS~~

[julesr 0]

DONT FORGET TAX TRANSCRIPTS AND JOINT HELATH INSURANCE AND CREDIT CARD STATEMENT AND AFFADAVITS FROM 2 FAMILY OR FREINDS~~

Yep - we got 4 affidavits done, I just forgot to put them on the list :-)

Can't do credit card really - my wife and I do have a joint one, but I've never used mine (I can't stand the things!) so don't have any statements with my name on as evidence (and they send individual statements, not joint ones anyway). I'll have to check our cards, though - maybe they share the same number so I can just photocopy both of them onto one page. That's not great, but it wouldn't hurt to include it.

cheers

Jules

[lynamon 0]

Yep - we got 4 affidavits done, I just forgot to put them on the list :-)

Can't do credit card really - my wife and I do have a joint one, but I've never used mine (I can't stand the things!) so don't have any statements with my name on as evidence (and they send individual statements, not joint ones anyway). I'll have to check our cards, though - maybe they share the same number so I can just photocopy both of them onto one page. That's not great, but it wouldn't hurt to include it.

cheers

Jules

Our credit card is in my name ... I just photocopied the front of the cards together on one page.

(our joint bank account shows payment to the card)

I also included a photocopy of the front of our drivers licence showing the same address.