birch2013

Actually @theresaL, this is a very complicated question. I read that PDF and it's pretty confusing to me. The actual parts of the Social Security handbook that cover this are numbers 1845 and 1846. They too were confusing but I finally understood them.

If you are married to a US spouse living in the US for 5 years, it is a true exception, even if you move out of the country for more than 6 months, and benefits can continue. However, that does not apply to citizens of countries specified in #1846. Rule after rule.

The easiest thing for anyone to do is use this tool, it's very helpful and walks you through the process:

https://www.ssa.gov/international/payments_outsideUS.html

14 minutes ago, theresaL said:

This is only 1/2 of the equation. You also need to look at eligibility for payments if the surviving no-citizen spouse is living outside of the US.

Oh you're right. Once they're out of the country for 6 months, they're no longer eligible. Thanks.

That's a good point @theresaL. I just checked on that issue with social security. It appears that if you (the US citizen) were married for 5 years to your foreign spouse and your foreign spouse lived in the US for 5 total years, they qualify fully as your spouse for social security purposes, both for the survivor benefit and the spousal benefit. Even if the foreign spouse no longer has a green card or US citizenship.

https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0302610030!opendocument

About taxes, I don't even want to know how much I am going to have to pay to get my taxes done if I live in another country. It already costs me thousands a year for myself and my US based businesses.

Luckily there are tax treaties with some countries, as you mention, but certainly not all of them! And even if you avoid the double taxation, correct me if I'm wrong, but that still means you're taxed at the higher of the two rates between the two countries.

Yes, @Jorgedig. 

18 minutes ago, Jorgedig said:

So how is it beneficial to you financially if your spouse doesn't become a citizen?  Overseas investments or earnings would be considered joint income, and you would still be taxed on it, right?

Well for one, it might allow us to get a bank account in a place where otherwise we might not be able to. In her name at least, not mine...

If my wife wants to not pay US taxes on foreign income, she would have to surrender her green card. This would only happen if we retired outside the US. But that is a real possibility for us as this point, retiring outside of the US. 

Again, if you never intend to live out of the US, you probably don't need to think about all these complicated things, just become a US citizen and forget about it.

For us, it's a difficult decision sometimes. My thinking is that if she doesn't NEED citizenship, then we won't get it for her. It's much easier to turn in her green card than to renounce US citizenship.

Here's 2 negatives to being a US citizen. If you are never going to live outside of the US, then these will probably never affect you.

1. Many banks now refuse service to US citizens. This is because of the onerous reporting requirements the IRS puts on a bank with US customers, even if the bank has no presence in the US at all. So the banks, including even some major European banks, simply refuse service to Americans period. It used to be that being American opened every door to you. Now it can close many doors also.

2. The US government is one of only 2 in the whole world who believe you owe it taxes on your worldwide income regardless of where you lived and where you worked. If you own a coffee shop in Paris, and haven't stepped foot in the US in 10 years, the IRS believes you owe it taxes every year on the money you make from your Paris coffee shop. As well as French taxes, I might add. Granted there are some loopholes and exceptions, but the rule remains that you owe US taxes on your worldwide income regardless of where you live or where the money was earned.

There are other disadvantages, these are the principal two that weighed on our mind.

There are indeed many, many advantages of being a US citizen, so weigh the pros and cons for yourself...

Thanks for all the good input everyone. I really do appreciate the information.

The sad thing is that the US government has weaponized US citizenship. They'll use it against you, though having it will benefit you too.

For us, the green card is the best fit. I'm an owner of multiple businesses, so my financial IQ is pretty high. It's mainly financial reasons that push me in this direction.

Thanks @NYCQueens2017, I may do that then.

Thanks for the info Sukie and Villanelle.

We have waited, it's been 5 months since the reply to the RFE was sent in. Two months since the biometrics were done. Hopefully we'll get some news soon.

Thanks for the reply, thanks to you and Jorgedig.

I updated the immigration timeline on my profile, TheresaL, if that helps.

No, we have not filed the N-400 petition and we don't intend to. I've talked it over with my wife. We don't see any major benefit to her becoming a US citizen. And there are significant long-term financial reasons for her not to become a US citizen. So we don't intend to file an N-400 at this time.

Hello fellow sufferers of this joke of an immigration system,

Some advice please.

My wife is a K-1 immigrant who came to the country in 2014, then marriage, conditional green card, etc. The usual process.

We are still waiting on the removal of conditions. We filed in November 2017. We finally got an RFE in March 2019. We filed the response in May 2019 with much more information like mutual medical and legal power of attorneys, etc. I will say my original I-751 was a little light but come on, we've already filed probably 1,000 pages with them over the years about our marriage from the K-1 to the green card to the I-751. Our response to the RFE was quite solid though.

We got a letter for a second fingerprint appointment in July 2019, probably because the fingerprints from almost two years were already expired. We had to postpone it due to travel but we did the second biometrics appointment in August 2019. That's all we've heard since filing the response to the RFE in May.

This is getting ridiculous, we're almost at the 2 year mark.

Should we:

_ Contact my congressman

_ Hire an immigration lawyer

_ Do nothing

_ Request an I-551 stamp in her passport

_ Call and wait 4 hours on hold before making a complaint

_ Something else?

Current status online says "Fingerprint review was completed"

Thanks in advance!

Hi R_n_B,

According to the information that I found, you will be hit with the penalty for her son. But, the insurance requirement (and the penalty) do not start to apply to either of them until you file for the adjustment of status. So if you file for AOS in December, my guess is that you should pay the penalty just for one month of 2015, December.

Since a K-1 visa is technically a non-immigrant visa, she and her son are just visiting, almost like tourists, and so the Obamacare requirements do not apply to them during the K-1 timeframe. Once you file their AOS paperwork, they are no longer here on a non-immigrant visa. They are now legally here in a special status, in transition to becoming permanent residents, and the requirements of Obamacare start to apply to them as soon as they begin the transition to permanent residents.

This is according to what I read...

I may be wrong on this though, Obamacare is so bad, that it's hard to get simple answers to simple questions about it.

Thank you all very much for the replies and all the information. Thank you for pointing me toward the exemptions and I just went through every single one of them.

Unfortunately, there's no exemptions that apply to us. We are part of the struggling middle class, if you know what I mean.

We could have afforded to get her health insurance, we just rationally examined the insurance offered and determined that it was a bad financial decision to purchase them.

And so far, we have been right about that. Even after we pay the fine, we will still have been right. That's how bad the insurance options were.

But thank you all very much for trying to help us.

Thanks for the replies! I figured as much but was hoping I was wrong.

Thanks Obama!

Hi Folks,

I have a wife who has been in the AOS status for most of this year. I hope she will get her green card around the end of the year.

We looked at health insurance and after running the numbers, decided not to get health insurance for her this year. We just pay cash for whatever health care she needs right now.

Does anyone know if we will be hit with the Obamacare penalty when we file our 2015 taxes?

Healthcare.gov says she is eligible to use the Marketplace for coverage, but doesn't say if the penalty would apply also.

https://www.healthcare.gov/immigrants/immigration-status/

Thanks to this post, I just went to check the AOS status for my Russian wife.

We mailed in her AOS application in February. It says that our interview was just scheduled.

I am pretty sure we will be through the Detroit office.

Thanks, mendeleev!

I appreciate the information.

Hello,

My fiancee is Russian and is in Moscow right now for her fiancee visa interview. She plans to go to the U.S. straight from Moscow shortly. She currently has an official address registration with her aunt, 1,000 miles from Moscow, in a city she will not go back to any time soon.

What is anyone's advice on the official address registration? Why would she pay to keep it, especially with the new law which means she will have more paperwork to do to register her green card the next time she goes back to Russia after getting her green card?

Is is ok to de-register that address, and not have a registered address in Russia? Is it possible to register a U.S. address as her official address? Is it possible to do this from Moscow, when she is registered in another city?

As an American, this process is very foreign to me.