Regarding US Tax Returns after Green Card

[abhi_meli 150]

Hello Everyone,

First of all thanks in advance.I came to US on K 1 in December 2015,got married in Feb 2016 and got my green card in Aug 2016.My spouse said that I do not need to file taxes for 2015 as I arrived in Dec'15 and we got married in Feb'16.My spouse filed as single.I have not worked since Dec 2014.I have few questions :-

1-Was I supposed to file for 2015?

2-I have not worked since Dec'2014.Do I still need to file taxes?

3-I received around 11 thousand dollars through wire transfer from my parents as a gift,few months back.Does it come under income and do I need to declare it on my tax returns.

4-I am supposed to travel to my home country for 2 months starting from Feb 24 till April last week.What forms do I  need to fill,sign and give to my spouse,if I need to file taxes.We will be doing "Married Filing Jointly"

5-Do I need to get some ITIN number or something? I am completely unaware of US Taxes procedure.

6-I don't have a Health Insurance and I know I will need to pay a fine.Do I need to do something for this before I leave for my home country?Will it affect during ROC? I am planning to get a Health Insurance as soon as I get a job.

[Shezi 108]

On 1/16/2017 at 8:03 AM, abhishek_meli said:

Hello Everyone,

First of all thanks in advance.I came to US on K 1 in December 2015,got married in Feb 2016 and got my green card in Aug 2016.My spouse said that I do not need to file taxes for 2015 as I arrived in Dec'15 and we got married in Feb'16.My spouse filed as single.I have not worked since Dec 2014.I have few questions :-

1-Was I supposed to file for 2015?

2-I have not worked since Dec'2014.Do I still need to file taxes?

3-I received around 11 thousand dollars through wire transfer from my parents as a gift,few months back.Does it come under income and do I need to declare it on my tax returns.

4-I am supposed to travel to my home country for 2 months starting from Feb 24 till April last week.What forms do I  need to fill,sign and give to my spouse,if I need to file taxes.We will be doing "Married Filing Jointly"

5-Do I need to get some ITIN number or something? I am completely unaware of US Taxes procedure.

6-I don't have a Health Insurance and I know I will need to pay a fine.Do I need to do something for this before I leave for my home country?Will it affect during ROC? I am planning to get a Health Insurance as soon as I get a job.

I there

 

I'm no expert but since you have no other replies I'll give it a shot.

 

1. I arrived at the end of October (in 2012) and still filed - we had a CPA do our taxes because my husband had businesses and was already using one. I don't remember the detail of that first filing other than we filed MFS. My part of the filing barely impacted but at least I was in the system. 

2. I'm not sure what you're asking here - you mean you didn't work for a year in the UK before coming to the US? IRS won't be interested in anything prior to arriving in the US. You have until 4/15/2017 to file your 2016 tax forms. Since you were in the US on January 1st 2016 it will be a straight year's file for you both, regardless of whether or not you are working.

3. The wire transfer - is there not a category for gifts? If not, I would put it under income but either way you will definitely need to report it to IRS.

4. The things I supply in our tax filing are:

• W2 (you won't have one if you're not working)
• bank statements from UK bank (checking and savings)
• FBAR for UK bank
• mortgage statement on UK house (the interest is a deductible)
• P60 and payslips for Teacher Pension in UK

If you don't have any of those things then you won't need to provide much. We still use a CPA because of the foreign banking element. We changed to a new one who had experience in foreign income because our last one didn't know about the FBAR which worried me sick. We are working toward filing our own taxes and saving the $500 pa but we're not there yet.

 

Health insurance. We take my husband's company plan. You know you will pay the penalty - I think the first fine is the smallest. It seems to aggregate year on year. This may be all about to change so if you're ready to pay the fine, that will buy you a year to see what happens next.

 

I hope you find at least some of this helpful. 

[abhi_meli 150]

Hey! first of all thanks a lot for the help.As a matter of fact,I am from India and yes I did not work for one whole year before arriving to USA on K1 and I did not work the whole year after arriving here.I am little confused about:-

• bank statements from UK bank (checking and savings)
• FBAR for UK bank
• mortgage statement on UK house (the interest is a deductible)
• P60 and payslips for Teacher Pension in UK
• I never worked as a teacher.I do not have a house on mortgage in India.

[Shezi 108]

On 1/18/2017 at 2:36 PM, abhishek_meli said:

Hey! first of all thanks a lot for the help.As a matter of fact,I am from India and yes I did not work for one whole year before arriving to USA on K1 and I did not work the whole year after arriving here.I am little confused about:-

• bank statements from UK bank (checking and savings)
• FBAR for UK bank
• mortgage statement on UK house (the interest is a deductible)
• P60 and payslips for Teacher Pension in UK
• I never worked as a teacher.I do not have a house on mortgage in India.

Then you won't have to supply the docs I supplied. I was just giving you an example of the kind of things you need to send but of nothing applies to you that should be a straight forward tax file.