taxes, total income and foreign income in the I864 (merged)

[uluslarci 2]

Hello all,

 

We are at the NVC stage. It is a complicated situation but I'll try to be clear.

 

The petitioner and the US citizen -my wife- had income for the third most recent year in the US. We were not married yet so we did not file taxes jointly.

 

For the second most recent year, she had income in the US and filed taxes jointly with me. I had US income too.

 

In the most recent year, she was living abroad with me so she did not have income from a US source but she had foreign income. But I had US income. 

 

We have her dad as the joint sponsor.

 

When she filled out I-864, she put only her portions of our income for Part 6, Item 24a and 24b which ask: My total income (adjusted gross income on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 1040EZ) as reported on my Federal income tax returns for the most recent three years was:

 

So the third most recent year is straightforward. She put only her income and we did not file taxes jointly. So this is ok.

 

For the second most recent year, we both had US income and we filed taxes jointly. But she put only her portion, not the total income that is stated in 1040 because she thought this is what they are asking for. 

 

For the most recent year, she put her foreign income for which she filed a tax form (2555) for the Americans who live abroad. But our 1040's total income included my US income too.

 

We've submitted I-864. It is accepted but it looks like we made a mistake.

 

So

 

1. Should she put the total income every time which includes my US income for all years and her foreign income for the last year?

 

2. Should we replace the income information in the way I described in the first question and resubmit a new I-864 as an extra document?

 

Thanks

 

[geowrian 22,336]

Quote

My total income (adjusted gross income on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 1040EZ) as reported on my Federal income tax returns for the most recent three years was:

This means you put down the exact lines from the tax returns for those 3 years. It doesn't matter if it is combined with a spouse, earned abroad, etc. It's a literal copy and paste from the tax return filed.

This is a separate issue from the question asking about current annual income.

 

If rejected, resubmit the I-864 online. Otherwise, carry the corrected I-864 to the interview.

[pushbrk 12,180]

1 hour ago, geowrian said:

This means you put down the exact lines from the tax returns for those 3 years. It doesn't matter if it is combined with a spouse, earned abroad, etc. It's a literal copy and paste from the tax return filed.

This is a separate issue from the question asking about current annual income.

 

If rejected, resubmit the I-864 online. Otherwise, carry the corrected I-864 to the interview.

Exactly correct.  Note also that she did not file a 1040EZ, so use the "total income" line NOT the AGI line.

 

Now, how did you deal with the current income being used to qualify.....?  This does not come from a tax return. 

Edited May 24, 2019 by pushbrk

[uluslarci 2]

14 minutes ago, pushbrk said:

Exactly correct.  Now, how did you deal with the current income being used to qualify.....?  This does not come from a tax return.  Not also that she did not file a 1040EZ, so use the "total income" line NOT the AGI line.

We will just re-upload a new I-864 as an extra document with the explanation because NVC officer was asking W2 anyway. We apparently messed up with it.

 

So just to make sure I get what you say correctly:

 

We will put the total income that we see in our 1040 for the last three years regardless of it is my income or her foreign income or US income.

 

For the current income -Part 6, Item 7, we will put zero because her foreign income won't continue. Is that what we are supposed to do? That is our understanding. 

 

We also apparently messed up with his dad's I-864, who is the joint sponsor. He did not put the total income for the Part 6/Item 24a and b as their jointly filed tax return shows -he also files with his wife jointly. He just put only his portion. So for the total income part, with the same logic, he will put the total income with his wife as the tax return shows, but he will write only his income as the current income (Part 6/Item 7). Along with the I-864, they will add an I-864A that will be filled by his wife.

 

Does this sound like a plan for our situation?

[pushbrk 12,180]

9 minutes ago, uluslarci said:

We will just re-upload a new I-864 as an extra document with the explanation because NVC officer was asking W2 anyway. We apparently messed up with it.

 

So just to make sure I get what you say correctly:

 

We will put the total income that we see in our 1040 for the last three years regardless of it is my income or her foreign income or US income.

 

For the current income -Part 6, Item 7, we will put zero because her foreign income won't continue. Is that what we are supposed to do? That is our understanding. 

 

We also apparently messed up with his dad's I-864, who is the joint sponsor. He did not put the total income for the Part 6/Item 24a and b as their jointly filed tax return shows -he also files with his wife jointly. He just put only his portion. So for the total income part, with the same logic, he will put the total income with his wife as the tax return shows, but he will write only his income as the current income (Part 6/Item 7). Along with the I-864, they will add an I-864A that will be filled by his wife.

 

Does this sound like a plan for our situation?

Yes, except you don't seem to be clear on "total income" yet.  It's a line on the tax return labeled total income.  For 2018 it's line 6.  For prior years it's line 22 on the first page of the 1040.  If you look, you'll find that line does NOT include any foreign income unless she failed to take the foreign income exclusion.

 

Total income from the tax return, not total revenue.  Again, current income does not come from a tax return.  It's your gross paycheck times the number of pay periods in a year.

 

Context.  Your wife does not have zero income.  She has zero income she is using to qualify, because there is none she can "use to qualify".  Don't ignore phrases of sentences like "to qualify" or "from tax return" etc.

[uluslarci 2]

 

 

 

2

4 minutes ago, pushbrk said:

Yes, except you don't seem to be clear on "total income" yet.  It's a line on the tax return labeled total income.  For 2018 it's line 6.  For prior years it's line 22 on the first page of the 1040.  If you look, you'll find that line does NOT include any foreign income unless she failed to take the foreign income exclusion.

 

Total income from the tax return, not total revenue.  Again, current income does not come from a tax return.  It's your gross paycheck times the number of pay periods in a year.

 

Context.  Your wife does not have zero income.  She has zero income she is using to qualify, because there is none she can "use to qualify".  Don't ignore phrases of sentences like "to qualify" or "from tax return" etc.

She actually has a foreign income exclusion if we mean the same thing: She does not make over $103.000. But she also filled out a Schedule I because form 2555 makes her fill out Schedule I, so line 22 from it -her foreign income- goes into the total income in 1040. So I assume we are supposed to put whatever line 6 of 1040 says for I-864. I'll look into the tax forms again though. Maybe there is another mistake done there too. 

 

But at least, we are clear about the rest. 

 

In the meantime, our previous I-864s were accepted but the NVC officer was asking for both my wife and her dad's W2s. Neither of them has W2 because my wife had foreign income and her dad is retired. Is it OK to resubmit new I-864s as extra documents with an explanation even if the old ones are accepted? Would NVC just disregard them?

[pushbrk 12,180]

You should find that her foreign income is not included in the total income on line 22.  How it's handled on line 6 of the 2018 tax return is something I haven't seen yet, but that's the number you used for the tax section regardless.

 

The premise of your question, "deciding total income" is off.  You do not "decide" total income.  You enter the number from the total income line on the first page of a 1040 form.  No "decision" to make.

Edited May 24, 2019 by pushbrk

[uluslarci 2]

12 hours ago, pushbrk said:

You should find that her foreign income is not included in the total income on line 22.  How it's handled on line 6 of the 2018 tax return is something I haven't seen yet, but that's the number you used for the tax section regardless.

 

The premise of your question, "deciding total income" is off.  You do not "decide" total income.  You enter the number from the total income line on the first page of a 1040 form.  No "decision" to make.

So we've checked the 1040 form, line 6.

Apparently, she made a mistake too when she filled out the form 2555, that brought the wrong amount of money to Schedule I, and that ended up putting her foreign income in 1040, line 6. That's why all this confusion started. As far as I understand, there is nothing to do about it for now. Normally, her foreign income would not be there. It'd be just my US income. And we would justify it through my W-2 and 1042-S. But now our total income in line 6 of 1040 includes my US income and her foreign income.

 

Should we still write the total income that we see in line 6 for I-864 although it has her foreign income mistakenly? We thought we can do this, and add a letter explaining the situation. We will, of course, also attach her 2555 and Schedule I along with 1040 and my W2 and 1042S. Theoretically, her dad is being my sponsor so it should be OK but what do you think?

[NikLR 13,220]

Tax transcripts... amend your taxes. 

[uluslarci 2]

3 minutes ago, NikLR said:

Tax transcripts... amend your taxes. 

We don't have tax the transcripts. IRS has a problem with foreign addresses for online transcripts and if we have them mail the transcripts, it will take 6-8 weeks. They even might not be ready yet.

 

1. What about sending the forms with an explanation as I said, and in the meantime, we can send a 1040X to IRS in order to amend the original 1040. If NVC does not care about my wife's mistake reporting her foreign income in 1040 because the joint sponsor is my wife's dad, I can take 1040X to the interview?

 

Her mistake does not put her into a situation in which she ends up not reporting the money she made. Rather, she reports her foreign income about which the IRS does not care. But of course this is wishful thinking.

 

2. Another option, we send a 1040X to IRS and submit a copy of that 1040X to the NVC with a new, corrected I-864 and explain the situation?

[pushbrk 12,180]

2 hours ago, uluslarci said:

So we've checked the 1040 form, line 6.

Apparently, she made a mistake too when she filled out the form 2555, that brought the wrong amount of money to Schedule I, and that ended up putting her foreign income in 1040, line 6. That's why all this confusion started. As far as I understand, there is nothing to do about it for now. Normally, her foreign income would not be there. It'd be just my US income. And we would justify it through my W-2 and 1042-S. But now our total income in line 6 of 1040 includes my US income and her foreign income.

 

Should we still write the total income that we see in line 6 for I-864 although it has her foreign income mistakenly? We thought we can do this, and add a letter explaining the situation. We will, of course, also attach her 2555 and Schedule I along with 1040 and my W2 and 1042S. Theoretically, her dad is being my sponsor so it should be OK but what do you think?

Amend the tax return, so it is correct.

[uluslarci 2]

Just now, pushbrk said:

Amend the tax return, so it is correct.

So, again just to make sure, we should submit a 1040X to amend our tax return to IRS. And we should submit a new I-864 to NVC with corrected information with an explanation and 1040X that will have the corrected total income? And in our explanation, we are going to say that "please disregard the first I-864 that is already accepted by the NVC officer. And please review the new one." along with the explanation we made a mistake. In that case, we don't need to wait for any response from IRS. We will sort of just start over with new I-864s to be reviewed.

 

Is that true? I am just being very cautious because we apparently had messed up with the documents before.

 

[uluslarci 2]

31 minutes ago, uluslarci said:

So, again just to make sure, we should submit a 1040X to amend our tax return to IRS. And we should submit a new I-864 to NVC with corrected information with an explanation and 1040X that will have the corrected total income? And in our explanation, we are going to say that "please disregard the first I-864 that is already accepted by the NVC officer. And please review the new one." along with the explanation we made a mistake. In that case, we don't need to wait for any response from IRS. We will sort of just start over with new I-864s to be reviewed.

 

Is that true? I am just being very cautious because we apparently had messed up with the documents before.

 

In the meantime, I-864 is accepted but the officer asked for W-2 of my wife because we made a mistake. We don't have it because she had foreign income which apparently was not supposed to be in 1040 and I-864. That's why we tend to replace I-864 with a new one along with 1040X, 2555, my W-2 and 1042S and so on instead of moving with the accepted old I-864 and bring the corrected versions to the interview.

[pushbrk 12,180]

53 minutes ago, uluslarci said:

So, again just to make sure, we should submit a 1040X to amend our tax return to IRS. And we should submit a new I-864 to NVC with corrected information with an explanation and 1040X that will have the corrected total income? And in our explanation, we are going to say that "please disregard the first I-864 that is already accepted by the NVC officer. And please review the new one." along with the explanation we made a mistake. In that case, we don't need to wait for any response from IRS. We will sort of just start over with new I-864s to be reviewed.

 

Is that true? I am just being very cautious because we apparently had messed up with the documents before.

 

You have a mess.  Clean it up.

 

[uluslarci 2]

My wife reported her foreign earned income with Form 2555 and took the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. This amount gets carried from Form 2555 to Schedule 1 (Form 1040) as a negative number in parentheses and gets subtracted from other additional income on that form. The result, for us, is another negative number. This amount gets carried to Form 1040 Line 6 and, as a negative number, gets subtracted from the wages and salaries reported on the 1040. On our jointly filed return, with me -the applicant- earning US income and the other -my wife, petitioner and the US citizen- earning foreign income, the amount on Line 6, "total income," comes out very low. It seems strange to subtract the foreign income from all the other income to come to the total income. Is this correct? 

 

When we put her total income, which is our total income as stated on the 1040 Line 6, in the I-864, it creates a number which does not line up with W-2 and 1042S that we submitted (it is much lower). Is this normal? As long as the amount lines up with everything on all our tax forms, will the NVC accept it?