flybird

If filing married separate, I understand that no ITIN or SSN is needed for the foreign spouse. My question is about writing NRA (nonresident alien).

Put that for the foreign spouse's SSN?

Put that for foreign spouses NAME?

Put that for both?

hi Dave,

I decided to go the simple route and just file married filing separate. My wife didn't have an ssn so I had to mail in the return with an itin app attached. Of course since your wife has her ssn you can skip that part.

So you do have a few options but only a tax pro can give the best advice based on your individual situation.

But just remember if you do elect to treat her as an ra for tax purposes for 2011 you do have to report the worldwide income for you and your wife.

hope that helps and good luck

Dan

Is the ITIN required when filing separate? Or only if applying join?

We filed Married filing Jointly and at the same time I applied for my INIT. I submitted a W-7 form together with a photocopy of my passport (the page with the ID, not all pages) that was verified by the US Embassy in my country to be identical to the original. The Embassy calls this "notarial services" and they charged me $50 for that. We entered our taxes online, then printed out the forms (we could not e-file, it kept asking for my SSN) and sent it all together via snail mail. We expect our return in 7-8 weeks.

Is the W7 asking for documentation related to the foreign spouse or the US citizen. Sorry I know I can look it up, but could use the help.

Related question.

I am a married USC and my wife we are still doing the visa process. I will probably file married, filing separately because tax day cometh and there is little time to do various things that would be required for filing jointly (and we can amend in years ahead). My question is what documents should we review to know:

a) Can I claim her as an exemption? Someone mentioned this, that the exemptions would be 2 not 1, in some circumstances.

Also, she doesn't earn any money in the US, doesn't live in the US of course and is not the dominant provider in any way. And her income in her home country is small.

b) How do I find out under what conditions she would also have to file a tax return?

I understand that if filing taxes jointly and submitting a W7, one must include certified copies of documents (eg passport or national id card) from the issuing agency. My question is, What is a certified copy of those documents? Are government offices able to generate copies of the official documents that they will also certify? What is the process?

Try not to overthink the affidavits. There should be template used in the locality where you plan to have that notarized. We just went a court house, explained what we planned to do and they showed a sample. We used that, inputing relevant family member's name . They then had the apprpriate court official stamp and date it.

Use a local sample instead of the template online here? Our application has no special connection to local courthouse services and going to a local courthouse sounds arbitrary. Why would that would that be better than the sample here?

I appreciate that advice. And let me double check. Does "do not overthink them" mean that special legal language (eg duly sworn at the top) is not what makes these documents what they are (affidavits)?

In other words, is it not special legal jargon that makes these letters official?

Thanks, here is another question:

Is this line important?

*********************************************

[NAME], being duly sworn, deposes and says:

*********************************************

I notice some "example" affidavits do not have that line. In addition, is it sensibly included? I don't know in what sense my family member "deposes" and whether that is the case for such a letter, and what that means.

My wife and I are asking people to prepare third party affidavits. What is the purpose of the final item in it (I refer to the template sample here in VJ), as follows?

**************

Sworn before me this _______ day of _______, [year]

_______________________

**************

Who is the "me"? Is the last line a signature line for the notary?

How "analytical" does one need to be regarding the fact that some documents don't have both of our names on every page, but sometimes only on a related or subsequent page?

Consider evidence of comingling of financial resources as paypal transfers. A key paypal history page does not list each of our names; it lists one name and of our email addresses. Another "summary" page includes just email address. We can each print our "settings" page that lists are names with our email address, for that to be used to allow them to match the email to the name, but this would require them that extra analytical step. Since the pages are not to be stapled (and the order of pages might be altered), and since (I presume) one can provide only very limited "instructions" for how the logic works, how do I know they will see what we see? If this is deemed messy or burdensome for them, should we consider just dropping this transfer, though it was a significant event in our comingling, and go with the several other transfers that were made by bank (not by paypal)?

What US offices answer questions from applicants going through the application process. Is it generally hard to have questions answered or are there offices whose job it is to really help with the process?

What is the US office or desk that can give feedback on this question?

My wife have know each other for a long time so we actually have over 1000 pages of skype chats. Any suggestions on how to represent it without including all of it? In lieu of other options, we might print one page from a month for the last two years. Are some messages or time periods more important than others. Any special considerations?

I have my photos made, but fate of fates I am smiling, while I see in the instructions now it says neutral facial expression. Has anyone every caught flack for smiling? Is it worth the hour trip to have new photos made?

A question like this has been raised in the past, but there is a new wrinkle due to the new I-130 form.

1. The first question is whether "none" is ok for question B9 (rather than leaving it blank).

2. Next, is blank ok for the date of prior marriage if there is no prior marriage.

I raise the question again because the new immigration I-130 form has intelligenT PDF software that prevents someone from writing characters instead of numbers (even if to write the word "None"). Does this now mean they want it kept blank, or is it ok to write "none" by hand?

It might seem like a small question, but I don't want to inconvenience the official.

Can someone point me to guides on this website (or external links) that say:

The extensive evidence of bone fide relationship (eg emails, phone communications, pictures, travel receipts) are actually looked at in the stage when we file the DS-230 (the NVC stage). I am aware that it is ok and useful to provide some evidence in the I-130 stage, but I am swimming in paperwork, and would like to split it among stages, but only if it will actually looked at in the DS230 stage.

But I want to be reassured that the extra stuff is welcomed and is not considered "late" if provided at that DS230 time, providing that some key stuff is also provided preliminarily at the I-130 stage (eg some financials and two affidavits).

One post hinted about this, but I seek confirmation.

In the CR1 process based on the I-130, is there a *intermediate stage, before the interview, at which a second stash of supporting evidence can be provided?

Did you read what I wrote? You can send in evidence with the I-130 or with the DS-230 which is at the NVC stage.

Oh, right, had misunderstood but now I got it.

My wife and I are in the process of doing CR1 and the I-130.

The translations of our marriage certificate do not have the special standard statement by the translator along the lines of, "I certify that I am competent to translate from x to y and I declare that the translation is accurate to the best of my whatever, etc, whatever (paraphraphasing)".

Instead it has a big standardized stamp showing the name of the translation company, their address, phone, email, and a graphic.

Since books seems to saw that translations must have the formal statement word for word, why would they not provide it? What don't I know? This is a professional translator that I feel probably must have helped lots of marriage visa customers. Could they be so sloppy to not provide the declaration in a form that is famously required?

I understand your answer (you sent them an overview in the form of the list of emails like a table of contents). I like the simplicity of it. Did the idea of this simpler approach come from someone with lots of experience? I like to think there is safety in numbers, that is safety in this approach if it is more or less common enough.

In response, the country is Thailand. (I am the original poster.)

How does that affect things?

Next question: although I read a book, I haven't double checked what is the nature of each of the next steps. Is there not a second step that is specifically dedicated to providing the 2nd load, I mean, a step in which they will get the 2nd load and are dedicated to looking at it systematically before everything else (the interview)? I know, I should read all of the the website first. Maybe you can send me some links.

I and my wife are doing CR1 and we are at the initial stage preparing the initial I-130 package. I had understood that this initial stage does not request mountains of support documents such as communications, travel receipts, wedding pictures, etc. However, I have heard more lately that it is good and/or preferable to provide all of that up front at the start even though it is not requested. Do you agree? Why?

What are the cons and pros? Are there really significant benefits to it?

Do the US officials actually start working on the second stage based on the documents provided extra early in the first stage? On one hand, I would like to be proactive and early. On the other hand, maybe doing all those extra stuff will a few more weeks delay in getting the first package out.

Does it really matter one way or another?

My wife and I are staring to do the CR1 process and will submit the I-130.

We have over 300 emails over 3 year period. We want to be impressive and real but not overwhelm them. How *many would you include in the package? How would you select, organize and present them? The same goes for skype chat messages. Is it worthwhile to worry about how many we select and how we select/organize/present?

My question is for people with experience with a certain type of issue. My wife and I love each other and have known each other for almost 5 years. We have great documentation of emails and skyping for that period of time, and we have receipts, plane tickets, and lots of pictures from the wedding, some sharing of money by transfer for small expenses, and heartfelt welcome notes from my family, etc. Now that we are married, we are looking into shared bank account, etc.

We are at the stage of *starting to fill out CR1 forms.

But to the issue:

My wife made a simple mistatement to her *home country civil marriage official (not to a US official), saying we knew each other (and lived together, not true) for 6 years but our emails go back only 5 years. Maybe she remembered wrong or maybe she had a flash of confusion or self consciousness or psysiological anxiety due to the pressure of not seeing each other and the paperwork stress. This was stated in another language and I did not know about it when it happened.

This misstatement now appears on a supplementary marriage document (of her home country) which is not the marriage certificate, but which is sometimes requested (by the US) as a supplement to the marriage certificate.

a. One question is under what circumstances will the US typically request the certificate-supplentary documents like this? Do they accept the flowery marriage certificate alone in 95 percent of cases when there is good documentation, etc?

b. How much will an official care about this size of a discrepancy when overall the marriage is genuine and has other very good documentation? Although the 5 years versus 6 years issue might be called small, maybe the it says "lived together" and that's just not so. Are US officials scrutinizing things aggressively looking for discrepancies like this in documents from the other country? Or are they "normal people" who recognize a person can make a mistatement due to nerves, self-consciousness, and culture differences?

b2. In the CR1 process, will we *both be asked on US forms when we met? Will we *both be asked in some other way (eg in person)?

c. What are the typical implications of this type of error? Would it typically merely cause a 4 month delay and cause lawyer intercession (which we can live with) or would it actually typically bring about visa failure (like more than a 5%). In other words, can it be expected to cause a final decision of "no". Would it cause a US official adding a year onto the process? Do US officials care about small to medium discrepancies like this when the marriage is otherwise clearly very genuine?

We can't presume at this time that an option is to have the (her-country) document corrected. We are still gathering information on whether that is easy or hard to do, and whether it might just insert new messiness/questions/hardships into the process. We are both under stress due to her statement because we love each other and we are both conscientious people.

I can ask all these questions to a lawyer, obvious, but different lawyers (just like different doctors) often give different advice, and each country is different. And if the lawyer has not dealt with this specific issue, then they can only shoot from the hip. That is why I am asking this question also on this forum.