Ammended Tax Returns now owing a lot of money

[PJ1925 2]

Hello,

I am applying for the green card with my husband as the petitionary. I have never worked in this country. i have been married 5 years. My husband never filed taxes for me. He always filed as single. Now my lawyer says that immigration will not like that and we will have to amend out taxes. We amended them. We now owe more than 3000 dollars. We have two kids together, and I am not sure how i owe if i HAVE never worked. We dont have the money to pay for this and we would like know what could our next steps be. We dont want problems with the IRS.

Thanks a lot for your help,

Anne

[kzielu 1,147]

Your next steps will to pay it - can try to agree with IRS on a payment plan. Also if you don't believe that your return was calculated correctly, you can re-do it yourself or go to different accountant.

[Pinkrlion 2,610]

Di you have income in your country. You still file that money. I do not understand also, how a family of 4 with only 1 income would owe? However, you will make a payment arrangement, and pay the bill. Welcome to America!

[Owen_London 65]

Something strange is going on, either with the way he filed before, or with the new calculation. If you personally have no income, then I think it is actually impossible for your taxes to go up when changing from filing single to filing as married filing jointly.

I recommend you re-check the tax calculations. Make sure the dependency exemption for the children is included.

There is one possibility, though. Your husband may have filed as head of household before, not single, something that a single person with children would be allowed to do. I don't know enough about head of household filing to know for sure if the tax bill might sometimes be lower than married filing jointly.

[El Mayimbe 6]

This definitely does not sound correct. Once amending from single to married filing joint you should get back about $2000. Go to www.freetaxusa.com and do it yourself . I just did it, head of household to married filing joint. I'm getting about 1400 more. Good luck.

[j&ana 363]

That does not sound right do what others have mention and recaculate is the accountant using the right deductions and filing status

[Enigma23 68]

I also would recommend having the taxes reevaluated because while I do not prepare taxes professionally now it used to be a my second income and I should not go up.. It should have been an additional refund due for each of those years that you were not claimed. I think something was done wrong somewhere.

Each person filed on the same return as a Dependent or Personal Exemption (1 for Self and 1 for each "Dependent" reduces the Taxable Income by $3900.

the you also get the Filing Status Deduction (Head of Household, Married Filing Separate, married Filing Joint or Single).

Here is the official rule per IRS

http://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/Seven-Facts-about-Dependents-and-Exemptions

Personal exemptions. You can usually claim an exemption for yourself. If you’re married and file a joint return you can also claim one for your spouse. If you file a separate return, you can claim an exemption for your spouse only if your spouse had no gross income, is not filing a return, and was not the dependent of another taxpayer.