Love's JAA

His son and wife would be treated the same for tax purposes. You are way out of your zone here. Tell me Danno. What is the estate tax now and how does it differ from spouse to child

Yes I meant that also. As in addition to being ...

The difference is the marital deduction. In general, one can leave his entire estate to his/her spouse free of estate tax. The amount left to the surviving spouse is deducted from the gross estate in arriving at the taxable estate. There's limitations of course where a surviving spouse remarries. The idea being, the tax will more or less be paid when the surviving spouse dies. You can't however leave an unlimited amount to a child free of tax. Only the estate exclusion amount. No deduction for bequests to children.

We have an NOA2 date of 24 July and have heard nothing at all.

You got NOA2 in July and have heard nothing since? That don't seem right. You need to call the NVC or embassy.

Im not really sure how being in Puerto Rico fits into all this- but I can tell you this.

In the US you have to report all income you make from any sources- regardless of whether they give you a 1099 or not.

Ive had jobs in the past where they havent given me 1099 forms. Freelance blogging type jobs online where the companies were based overseas. Some would send 1099s at the end of the year, some dont.

It was my responsibility as the US taxpayer to disclose ALL the income I earned on my tax return if the money I earned from the company was more then 400$. I had to keep my own records of what the company paid me and provide it to the IRS in case of an audit. Because the company wasnt giving me paystubs and was paying me through paypal or some other wire service- I was an independent contractor and responsible for the records.

I think maybe thats the part where youre getting hung up? When the IRS gets a 1099 from a company they match it up the persons return to see if the person reported it and they match. If it doesnt match, or the company reported it and the person failed to report it- an audit is triggered.

Your accountant is basically saying well, no 1099 is going to show up- sooo dont worry about it. The IRS isnt going to be looking for a 1099 on your end. And well, yeah thats true.

But legally you are required to disclose and pay tax on ALL income you earned regardless of whether or not the company issued you a 1099 form or not. If they didnt issue you one- its OK. You just report the money with out one. If the IRS ever wants to know- hey how did you come up with that EXACT amount you claim the company paid you (to know if its accurate or if you shaved a bit off to save money) well then, you better have records. Statements of the deposits the company made into you account. They better add up to the penny of what you put on your tax return. Get it?

(however in all the years Ive been doing this and all the other people I know that do this- only one person I know of was audited for records of such and it was due to an unrelated complex issue where both spouses claimed the kids after a divorce when only one was suppose to and the IRS opened up both returns and audited them to straighten it out)

Not reporting the income simply because the company didnt is tax fraud in the US (perhaps in PR its different? But I doubt it) I really dont know why your accountant would tell you that. Perhaps ask another one? Or simply go to one and tell them- I know this company is not providing me with a 1099 but this is the amount they paid me and I want to report it and pay the tax on it- what are the forms I need, and see if theres a way to exclude the income as foreign income.

(Im inclined to agree with bewildering though- it doesnt appear to be something thats going to apply to the 2555 and be excluded. He lives in the 'US'. Hes just earning the money from a company overseas. Its most likely going to be taxable here- unless they are taking tax out there- then you might be able to get a tax credit on it)

It sounds like he's not getting an earnings statement so the amount he'd be reporting are the actual deposits which would be a net amount. So you wouldn't report net AND take a foreign tax credit. But I generally agree, best to report it and pay the taxes. Since he's working out of Puerto Rico, I would guess he might be considered self-employed and the IRS would be looking for self-employment (social security and medicare taxes) as well as income taxes when he does report the income. File a return and get the statute of limitations running.

I know we'll have to hit the Jollibee in Sacramento when I take my baby with me out to visit my brother there, but I'm personally waiting for Mang Inasal to open up in the US.

The OP is from Italy, not India. Italy is on the VWP

Italy is on the visa waiver program, they don;t need to apply for a visitor visa

They said in the post content Indian, not Italian.

Yeah they just updated it yesterday to February 28 (from January 31 previously). Now it says 7.5 months! That's a bunch of BS!

No. You do NOT abbreviate on the forms. Someone got RFE'd for writing "USA" instead of United States of America.

Do not assume you know "the codes", write it out completely.

that's interesting. can you link me to that post? because when i try to fill out the form, it's impossible to fit the name of my city as well as the name of the country without abbreviating something. seems outrageous that they would provide forms with such limited fields and expect that you won't abbreviate.

I wonder if i could use some abbreviation in G325A form. Like Villa Consuelo as V Consuelo; Philippines as PHILS.

the two letter code for philippines is PH. the three letter code is PHL. you can look up international country codes on google. i don't see abbreviation as a problem as long as it is a standardized abbreviation, such as those used in the postal system. i would not use so called "texting abbreviations".

Thought I'd post some somewhat positive news out of Chicago, since some people seem to love only posting the negative.

After school and Summer job programs for youths are a great idea, and I'm hoping they see positive results.

I'm from here, and it's the weather. Last year we were having summer like temps in March. This year has been a very cold spring. But maybe you read about the 28 thugs that just got arrested only a few blocks away from the "Mag Mile" doing their "wilding", attacking and robbing. They jump off the subway on State and Grand and go on an attack spree and then jump back on.

My fiancee is filipino and I am the US citizen. I am about to file the I-129f petition for my fiancee to apply for the K1 visa. However, her friends in the UAE have told her that they have failed twice at the US embassy in Abu Dhabi for the same thing. Now she is concerned that the same thing might happen to her. Since I haven't filed yet, we still have some options.

If money and time weren't an issue, I would file the I-129f anyway and hope for the best. If she got denied (which I don't think would happen, but anything is possible), we would then get married and file the I-130 petition for her to apply for a CR1 visa. That just takes too much time. Not to mention the added expense.

Another option is for us to get married in the Philippines and then apply for the spousal visa. The only problem with that is she won't go back there until October or november for her annual leave. The good thing about that is that we can have the wedding we both want, and all of the paperwork will be mostly completed before then, we will just be waiting on the marriage certificate after the wedding. She could go back to the Philippines early and we could get started early, but she would have to leave her job and go back to live with family.

The reason I posted in this forum is I am looking for someone with K1 experience in the UAE. If I am the sole sponsor (I make more than 125% of the poverty level for my situation), and all of our paperwork is in order, we should be ok, right? I know this sounds pretty straight forward, but her friend tried for the fiancee visa and failed twice. From my limited knowledge of what happened, I take it they were trying to use a co-sponsor.

Any help will be appreciated. Really this decision is going to come down to what my fiancee and I think is best for us, but I'd like to make an informed decision.

Did her friends say why they failed - what the reason(s) was/were?

[quote name=' timestamp='1358449867' post='5927727]

As members of one of the many VJ-related Facebook groups, I don't think any of the FB conspiracy theorists here would believe us if we told them how nearly evenly divided opinion on the FB group is on this subject.

They got facebook groups related to Va-J-J?

hate when pople make threads and say "ive searched for the answer and couldnt find it" and the answer happens to be in ten other threads on the first five pages of the forum.

Even worse, I hate when people ask a question, get a direct answer but they don't like the answer and so ask again pretending they never got an answer in the first place. Sometimes they do this in the same thread, and sometimes they start multiple threads about the same dam thing!

OMG I have had these uncontrollable food cravings the last couple of days. Working out is doing weird things to my body.

I seriously asked my husband to go get me a Fransk hotdog for breakfast yesterday and I just ate steak for dinner but I'm still craving something.

That photo looks just plain wrong. Are you sure it's only food you're craving?

Is this one year from NOA1 to NOA2 or from NOA1 to visa in hand?

It must be to NOA2 because USCIS doesn't handle the rest. That's the State Dept.

Any news on that? Are they reopening today?

There has been no NOA2 from CSC for almost a wee here

USCIS California Service Center Has Reopened

The USCIS California Service Center (CSC) has reopened on March 27, 2013 following a temporary closure due to plumbing issues. Deliveries have resumed and USCIS does not anticipate any delays due to the closure.

Last updated:03/27/2013

I guess they got all I-129Fs all flushed down, and the pipes are cleared for a new batch.

From a law firm website:

DAVIS BROWN LAW FIRM

One of the four main processing centers for immigration benefits applications has temporarily closed because of flooding from plumbing problems, USCIS announced today, March 26.

Deliveries by UPS and Fed Ex during the last couple of days have been delayed and the delay will continue to during the closure. US Postal Service deliveries go to a PO box off-site and apparently were not delayed per se, although USCIS does not consider USPS filings to be received until the PO box deliveries are picked up and taken to the Service Center (which is an odd rule given that both are federal government agencies).

The announcement did not indicate whether application processing would continue. Adjudicators are often able to work from home (and do so in the ordinary course of business), but how much work can be done while the center is closed is unclear.

As CSC is one of the two sites that accept and process H-1B filings, the closure is particularly concerning so close to the April 1 filing date.

However, the government is well-aware of the upcoming deadline and we will closely watch for any instructions regarding H-1B filings in light of the situation at CSC.

When CSC re-opens, it will be important to watch the receipt dates on I-797 notices if the date would affect your case. If the case was filed during the closure, you should retain your shipping receipts or print out shipping information on-line to prove when the application was actually sent and delivery attempted. Beneficiaries should not be harmed by the closure, which is beyond their control, but proof of timely filing will be needed to make this argument.

Premium processing has not been suspended, so applications filed in that manner should be adjudicated in 15 calendar days, or the petitioner is entitled to a refund of the $1225 filing fee.

They shut down the whole center for a plumbing problem??? That's just a bunch of #######!

They also have TSC and NBS listed, which seems to be skewing the national average. Do they really process any I-129F's there?

Yeah, you are right. They appear to be simply adding the avg time for each center and dividing by 4 (four centers) rather than a more complex weighted average based on actual cases processed at each center. The four centers avg times were 5 months, 13.2 months, 16.2 months, and 6.6 months (for Vermont, National, Texas and California respectively, for I-129Fs. This totals 41. Divide that by 4 and you get the 10.2 month national average posted. Not sure where the numbers for Texas and NBC come from - didn't know they were even processing any I-129Fs there either.

When I go to my My Case Status page on USCIS, there is a place to look at processing times from there. The numbers are different from the processing times accessed from USCIS home page. July 18th is not mentioned. Instead it says (for 129F) 6.6 months for CSC, 10.2 months for USCIS National Average, and 5 months for USCIS National Goal, all of these as of Dec 31st 2012. Thoughts?

Now it says 6.6 months for CSC as of January 31, 2013, whether I use IE or Chrome. Last night it gave different readings when I used different browser and was dated December 31.

I think you may have clicked on the K3/K4 figures. K1 is still the same 7.9 National Average and 5.5 months for California Service Center

I guess you haven't read the conversation here very closely. It's a browser issue. Chrome vs Internet Explorer was giving different results on that page. No we didn't click the wrong K version, sheesh!

yeah it says the server is down now.

I got 5.5 months yesterday evening, now I'm getting 6.6 today and 10.2 for national average... Like everything I think no one has any idea as to what is going on at CSC

I'm get 6.6 on Chrome and 5.5 on Internet Extorter. But I used to get 5.5 on Chrome also. So they changed something and didn't finish the update job. That was a good observation though, and I find that really weird. Never saw anything like that, getting totally different results based on your browser choice. Kind of scary. I think that maybe the new estimate will be 6.6 months. The national average is a mystery. As someone did here, I also commented previously under a different conversation wondering about how can they get a natl avg that is greater than the avg of the two main adjudication centers?

Looking at the data on the USCIS website CSC only completed 1000 applications combined in Dec and Jan. Where VSC has completed 8800 applications in the same time span. I would post the link to where I got this data but VJ will not allow me.

When I first filed my application I was happy to see I was sent to CSC now I am very disappointed.

Yeah I just compared the two graphs. Yup, 8 to 1 processing ratio for the last two months, Vermont over California for K-1s.

I think you are further along in the process now. Our petition had been approved...and our status had updated (twice somehow) that our address had been updated, it seems the update was effective. I'll let you know what happens next. Just thought I would follow up if no one else had heard. Will be in touch with NVC late next week to see where we are.

Thanks for the update, and congratulations on NOA2.

lets pay for the best for us lets all pray guys ( finger crossed

Is there an expedite fee we can pay to get it done faster?

yes, CSC is way backed up. when i last talk to someone at the call center i asked and they said they cannot even tell anyone when a petition may get approved. when i checked on the same page as processing, it says this:

http://dashboard.uscis.gov/index.cfm?formtype=4&office=2&charttype=1

you will see california has well over 250,000 petitions to get approved.

when we were in review, first they said give them 120 days, when i did a service request they said give the 6 months from the date they received it back from the consulate, after that it took over 8 months to get approved and reaffirmed.

be patient with california, their workload is more than others and they are short handed.

250,000 is the national quantity. California has around 20,000 pending. They been going down each month for more than a year. Look at the bottom chart on that page.