Thanks to everyone for your advice! It was helpful.
We submitted the response to the RFE yesterday (by uploading it online).
We included a cover letter of explanation, a corrected and signed I-864, complete tax return submission (we filed as married filing joint) - thanks @JeanneAdil, tax return transcript (thanks @pushbrk! I think that was one of the main issues, I am new to all the IRS "transcripts", so found the RETURN TRANSCRIPT when we checked again. We submitted it seems an "Account Transcript" but it showed up after we had submitted our tax return...), beneficiary spouse's W-2, employment verification letter, and paystubs along with sponsoring spouse's employment verification letter and paystubs so far. We also included our lease document (with both our names on it) showing our primary residence and being members of the same household, and an old and latest utility bill (also with both our names on it).
The issue on the I-864 was, we filled it out using Adobe but when printing Revu/Bluebeam application was used which appended zeros to the number of household members and I can't believe I did not catch that... (it was a lot of work to gather all the documents, evidences, etc. to file initially) anyways, hope this helps anyone down the road. Here's what it looked like, FYI:
Yes, a lawyer I spoke to threw me off about needing an I-864A, apparently due to the way I filled the I-864, which did not seem to make sense to me, per the instructions. To me, it seemed because of the "boilerplate" language they have to include but better to ask when in doubt than assume. Per pg. 2 on I-864A (ver. 10/17/24) instructions:
and pg. 10 Form I-864 instructions (ver. 10/17/24), and as on the form itself Item 14, Part 6, pg. 6:
Something I noticed was it seems the USCIS officer was nice enough (as it seems to me at least) to highlight/bold the information they are looking for.
