Tax Statement vs Tax Return vs Tax Statement

[kryptonite 43]

Hello everyone,

 

I am beside myself with this whole process and I am in need of some help. I thought NVC was supposed to be the part that's a breeze in comparison to the USCIS portion of all of this.

 

Please see below a screenshot of our Document submissions:

The "W2 Combined.pdf" document submitted on October 20th, 2021 under "FORM W-2 WAGE AND TAX STATEMENT" was my wife's W-2s for two of her jobs. 

 

On January 25th, 2022 we received a "Case FE Review note" stating the following: Please upload and submit [my wife]'s most recent Wage and Income IRS tax transcript from 2020. A transcript can be obtained on the IRS's website: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript. If you were not required to file a tax return, please write, and scan an explanation for not filing. If you filed taxes with your spouse, please also submit all of your W-2s and or 1099s. For more information, please visit https://nvc.state.gov/fin.

 

She did not file her taxes with me. The "202012_Wage and Inco....pdf" document submitted on January 25th, 2022 under "FORM W-2 WAGE AND TAX STATEMENT" was her Wage and Income IRS tax transcript as requested by them in their Case Review note.

 

79 days later we have received another "Case FE Review note" stating the following: Please upload and submit [my wife]'s most recent Wage and Income IRS tax transcript from 2020. A transcript can be obtained on the IRS's website: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript. If you were not required to file a tax return, please write, and scan an explanation for not filing. If you filed taxes with your spouse, please also submit all of your W-2s and or 1099s. For more information, please visit https://nvc.state.gov/fin.

 

Notice that the note is the exact same as the last time so I am unsure what they are asking for and I do not want to upload the wrong form again and wait another 2-3 months just for them to tell me it's not right.

 

I noticed that the "Missing" document type is now labelled differently as "FEDERAL INCOME TAX RETURN OR TRANSCRIPT". I'm not sure if that means anything. What do they want now? The tax transcript was already submitted, w-2s were already submitted.

 

Really hoping for some help!

 

Thanks guys!

 

[mam521 1,718]

They are asking for her income tax transcript which can be obtained through the IRS website.  The transcript essentially verifies that the return was filed and reviewed by the IRS.  If the pdf was combined to include her W2, that'll get you the RFE.  They want the very specific document, nothing added, nothing left out.  

[hunny&me 267]

For year 2020 and older, W2 cannot be uploaded.  You will need to upload IRS Transcript  https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript. 
For 2021, if you already have transcript, upload transcript + W2/1099

[kryptonite 43]

On January 25th, that is exactly what we uploaded. We followed that link and uploaded the Wage and Income IRS Tax Transcript.

[hunny&me 267]

1 minute ago, kryptonite said:

On January 25th, that is exactly what we uploaded. We followed that link and uploaded the Wage and Income IRS Tax Transcript.

Yep...
The Document Title for the transcript is FEDERAL INCOME TAX RETURN OR TRANSCRIPT  >> only transcript, do not combine with other PDF/doc
FORM W2 has other title.
It seems you uploaded the transcript as FORM W2.
 

[kryptonite 43]

1 minute ago, hunny&me said:

Yep...
The Document Title for the transcript is FEDERAL INCOME TAX RETURN OR TRANSCRIPT  >> only transcript, do not combine with other PDF/doc
FORM W2 has other title.
It seems you uploaded the transcript as FORM W2.
 

That was my best guess on what the issue was. The fact that it was uploaded under a different Document Title. 

 

I really hope reuploading under this new title doesn't mean another 2 months of waiting. From what I have seen and heard, this will most likely be the case

[hunny&me 267]

2 minutes ago, kryptonite said:

That was my best guess on what the issue was. The fact that it was uploaded under a different Document Title. 

 

I really hope reuploading under this new title doesn't mean another 2 months of waiting. From what I have seen and heard, this will most likely be the case

We hope for the best! And since tax season is almost over, upload 2021 too!  I uploaded last 3 years on mine plus latest W2 in December.  We DQd in March.  But on interview, i plan to upload/send to my husband the 2021 W2 + 1040.  (We file MFJ for tax, so that is still in process with IRS for the ITIN and tax filing.)

[pushbrk 12,103]

Note that all references to "transcript" are asking for a "Tax Return Transcript".  There are other transcripts available from IRS, but only the Tax Return Transcript will satisfy this requirement.  Typically, a W2 form is not needed if a Tax Return Transcript is submitted, but it is OK to submit both. (as separate documents)

[chaoticenergy 32]

On 4/14/2022 at 3:21 PM, kryptonite said:

That was my best guess on what the issue was. The fact that it was uploaded under a different Document Title. 

 

I really hope reuploading under this new title doesn't mean another 2 months of waiting. From what I have seen and heard, this will most likely be the case

I am wondering how this issue was resolved. If you can update your situation I'd appreciate it!

 

To elaborate my issue, NVC is asking for Wage and Income Transcript and NOT the Tax Return Transcript as someone posted above. Wouldn't it be kind of strange to send the Tax Return Transcript instead of Wage and Income Transcript when we are specifically being asked for that form?

[kryptonite 43]

8 hours ago, chaoticenergy said:

I am wondering how this issue was resolved. If you can update your situation I'd appreciate it!

 

To elaborate my issue, NVC is asking for Wage and Income Transcript and NOT the Tax Return Transcript as someone posted above. Wouldn't it be kind of strange to send the Tax Return Transcript instead of Wage and Income Transcript when we are specifically being asked for that form?

Hi @chaoticenergy, this was the most confusing part for us and set us back 4 months. Each time you submit, you get sent back to the end of the line and have to wait 2 months for them to review your documents. We had to submit twice. I am not a lawyer or an expert in this topic so I will just let you know what exactly happened with us and what I submitted and you can proceed with your case as you see fit.

 

Please see the screenshot that's above (or attached - not sure how it will show). We submitted our documents initially on October 20th, 2021. We received a review note on January 25th, 2022. It said "Please upload and submit [Petitioner]'s most recent Wage and Income IRS tax transcript". So you can see on January 25th, 2022 we submitted the Wage and Income Transcript. On April 18th, 2022, we received another review note stating the exact same thing as before. This time, we submitted the Tax Return Transcript. On June 29th, 2022 we got DQ'd. I don't understand the wording at all. They asked for Wage and Income but, weren't satisfied until they got the Tax Return Transcript.

 

A few things to note here though:

 

1. Notice how the Wage and Income Transcript we submitted on January 25th, fell under "Additional AOS Supporting Documentation" and the final document we submitted - the Tax Return Transcript fell under "Required AOS Documents".

2. I read somewhere on this forum as well that the Document Type is important too - that the document you're submitting should be uploaded under the correct category/document type. Not sure if that's true or not. 

3. Don't go off of the "Accepted" status as any document we uploaded that was relevant to our case was Accepted. It didn't mean it led to DQ. 

 

So in summary, I'm not sure where we went wrong. Perhaps the error was on our part. Perhaps it's the way we uploaded the document or perhaps the wage and income transcript we submitted on January 25th, was indeed the right document but, they needed to see additional documents and so that is why they requested the second one. I am not sure. 

 

Apologies if I could not be more help. Best of luck!

[chaoticenergy 32]

9 minutes ago, kryptonite said:

So in summary, I'm not sure where we went wrong. Perhaps the error was on our part. Perhaps it's the way we uploaded the document or perhaps the wage and income transcript we submitted on January 25th, was indeed the right document but, they needed to see additional documents and so that is why they requested the second one. I am not sure.

Thanks for the reply. Did you initially not submit sponsor's tax return or tax transcript? If so, I think we are in a similar situation since we mistakenly submitted 2020 tax return transcript instead of 2021.

 

I am explaining my situation further below so that may be someone can revisit in the future as reference:

 

Unfortunately, our 2021 tax return transcript is still not available due to IRS backlogs. We had our lawyer draft up a letter explaining this and, as asked, attached IRS Wage and Income transcript. And just in case, we also uploaded 2021 tax returns (1040) along with all W2 and 1099 (of course, W2 and 1099 were uploaded separately as additional documents). Technically, 1040+W2+1099 should be enough. Hopefully things will get resolved after this.

 

I am now worried about the document category thing you mentioned, however. Our lawyer uploaded a new I864 within the same response document to the RFE because as we are now going by 2021 numbers, it had to be corrected. Since our previous I864 was accepted and they didn't ask for another one, hopefully this won't cause an issue.