RFE - Question about annual income & filing year

[citizenkim 0]

Hi everyone- I joined the site earlier this year and have been referring to it extensively for our K1 process. It's been a huge help but now I'm unclear about some things.

I'm the USC/petitioner, and I got a RFE early December a month after sending off our AOS package for the following:

1) Submit all supporting tax documentation submitted to the Internal Revenue Service for the most recent tax year.

I had already attached a statement to explain that I was not required to file in 2013 as I made less than the income threshold since I lived in France the majority of the year and did not work there. I guess I will just submit this again then?

2) Based on the documents submitted with Form I-864, Affidavit of Support, for the petitioner/sponsor, the income did not meet 125% of the poverty guideline for the petitioner/sponsor's household size.

I think this is where I messed up, because what I had been reading on calculating annual income was for people who had been holding their jobs for a while. So I wrote that my annual income was $30,000, included a letter from my employer, and submitted 6 months of paystubs. Now that I received the RFE I realize that they only wanted to know my year-to-date income for 2014, right?

In that case, it puts me at $15,000 because I only started in late May of 2014. In that case, I have assets just a couple hundred dollars over the 3x difference and, from what I understand, they like to see that you're comfortably over 125% of the poverty line, so I figure it's best to get a co-sponsor to get approved.

Which brings me to my question- I just want to make sure that 2014 is still considered my "filing year" and that I should go with a co-sponsor.

Or, is it that now that it's 2015 and I'll be resubmitting my I-864-- I can now be the sole sponsor as my projected income for 2015 will put me over the income requirement?

I called the help line this morning and the first guy I talked to had no idea what I was talking about and ending up transferring me to tier 2 for help- with a 100 minute call back time!

So I wanted to see if I could get clarification here. Thanks for reading

Edited January 6, 2015 by citizenkim

[slangofoil 50]

The way you were thinking about it was correct. They are not asking for year-to-date income, but current annual income, so what you submitted should have been sufficient.

What did the letter from your employer say? Did it include your start date, # of hours worked per week, annual salary? I know you said you wrote it down, but does the employer letter confirm the amount you're making?

If you respond to the RFE before April 15th then the "most recent tax year" is still 2013. It's only after April 15th tax filing deadline that 2014 information would be needed.

Just to confirm, it's just you and the hubby for your household, right? You don't have 5 kids or anything like that?

[citizenkim 0]

Yeah it's just me and my husband.

My employer letter states that I started in May 2014, that I hold a full-time position, and confirms my annual salary (my paystubs show that I get paid as an independent contractor, though). So due to getting checklisted, I did a lot of searching through old posts on here for similar RFE problems and came across a post in which someone said that a recurring theme in some RFEs was that the sponsor did not work the whole year. So I think I'll just go with a joint sponsor to be on the safe side.

My filing question was about having to show income "for the current year," so I wasn't sure that since now we're in 2015, if that changed my situation or not (since in this case my projected salary for the whole year would eliminate the need for a joint sponsor). But I got a call back from an immigration officer who said that it's 2014 that I should still account for. Wishful thinking, is all!