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Megan in Brazil

I-864 - Using Joint Sponsor, Does Petitioner Need to Provide Asset Info

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Hello everyone,

I am the Petitioner, filling out the I-864 now. Here's a little background info:

 

1. Because I live abroad (due to my wife's requirement to fulfill a J1 two-year-home-residence-requirement) my current income is listed as $0.

 

2. I do have sufficient assets (from US stocks) but am hesitant to provide the documents as they have account numbers that I don't want additional people to have access to.

 

3. I already have a joint sponsor as I was not initially aware that my assets might be enough even without any US income. Their application is already complete and ready to go. 

 

4. I read this online talking about common mistakes on I-864: "Whenever the petitioning sponsor requires a joint sponsor, however, his or her income becomes irrelevant.  In other words, the petitioning sponsor, while still required to submit an I-864, is not able to sponsor any of the intending immigrants."

 

My question is this: If I just go ahead and use a joint sponsor, do I need to provide my asset information? Can I leave it blank or write "not applicable"? Will it negatively affect the approval in any way if I  have zero income and zero assets but am not the sponsor?

 

 

Thank you so much in advance for any help anyone can give me. It's been a confusing process and this website has been incredibly helpful for my wife and I!

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24 minutes ago, ConOfficer said:

Black out your account numbers. 

Thanks for the quick reply. Ok great, I wasn't sure if there would be an issue with that. Additionally though, I'm wondering about this:

 

1. Am I required to provide asset information if I am using a joint sponsor regardless? I don't want to lose time if they determine that just assets and no income is not enough so I will for sure be using a joint sponsor as a back up (sending their I-864 at the same time).

 

2. Is it useless or beneficial to include my assets if I am using a joint sponsor?

 

3. If I am required to provide the asset info, do I need to create a cover letter specifically explaining my assets? Is a recent statement (both of Stock Account and Checking/Savings Account) enough for proof of ownership? Will I need to provide info and/or describe when the accounts were opened?

 

Also FYI I am filing online. Not sure if uploading documents in a specific format will be an issue either.

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Filed: IR-1/CR-1 Visa Country: Chile
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Under the assets section on the I864 form, it says, "Optional," i.e. you do not need to disclose assets. You do need to have filed taxes and I don't know if your tax forms would reflect the assets. I think you should look at the I864 and read exactly what questions they ask.

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Thanks for replying hm139. Yes I saw that too but then over thought it because the exact wording and emphasis in the I-864 is: "If your income, or the total income for you and your household, from Part 6., Item Numbers 20. or 24.a. - 24.c., exceeds the Federal Poverty Guidelines for your household size, YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED to complete this Part 7. Skip to Part 8.

And although it says Optional, my income is also not sufficiently over the poverty guidelines, therefore requiring supplemental income from assets (is that right or wrong to think?). I worried it would be a lie by omission type situation if I didn't provide the asset information. And I wondered if using a joint sponsor would allow me to just leave that section blank given that I have a joint sponsor. 

 

My tax transcript does reflect minimal taxable dividend income (but never more than $1000), so I also worried that would mean that my info on the I-864 wouldn't fully match up to the transcript, which demonstrates that I have stocks. Actually along those same lines, I was unsure about the section where I can (again it says Optional) list the assets of the intending immigrant (my wife). We have a joint checking/savings account and I wasn't sure how that would be counted given that it isn't double the money, but inputting it in the form made it so. But I worried that if I included it in my own listing of assets, and they checked the statement they would see that it's a joint checking/savings account and question why it was not listed under her (optional) section about assets.

 

I can't tell if I'm just completely overthinking things or if it's a very important thing I would be getting wrong. 

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Filed: AOS (pnd) Country: Brazil
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Hey guys, 

 

so my joint sponser hasn’t turned in her most recent tax return (2017) bc she got an extension. My question is: can we use the one from 2016 and her bank statements from 2018?  

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