C_C

Hi all,

Well, we've just been given my interview date for the 1st of February so now we have 3-week deadline to sort out the last details.

One of my questions to those who have gone through DCF in London and have attended their interview, or for anyone who knows:
if the USC has been working in the UK and their tax returns reflect their UK-earned income (so no W2 is available), does the Consulate still ask for additional documents such as payslips, P60 etc?
My husband has IRS transcripts for his 2008 and 2009 returns, but as we're preparing to send out his 2010 tax return these days, there won't be enough time to get transcripts, so we'll have to present simple copies.
I'm just wondering if they'll be happy with just that or if they're likely to ask for more supporting documents. What does people's experience say?

Thanks!

rpjs

My wife had only just filed her taxes retrospectively with the IRS in London so all we had were the copies of the 1040s which we'd asked the London IRS unit to return to us stamped "RECEIVED". The Consulate accepted these without any problems and we didn't supply any supporting docs.

C_C

Thanks rpjs!
Do you remember how long it took for your returns to come back stamped from IRS London? We only have 3 weeks left for the interview and I'm wondering if that's enough time..

Qube

I recently did something similar for my wife (who is the USC) and although we aren't at interview stage or anything, I seem to remember it took about a week to get the stamped returns back. Get them done asap and hopefully you'll have time. You need to send photocopies of the first page of each 1040 you do and request a stamped return, there's a good article in the wiki section.

rpjs

Agreed, it was a really fast turnaround by the IRS in London - a week tops. And if your close enought to London to make it practical I think I'm right in saying that the USC can go in person to the IRS unit at the Embassy to file and get a stamped copy.

C_C

Thanks a lot! That is really useful and we'll definitely do that!

Final question on this subject: when you submitted the actual tax returns with the IRS (not the stamped copy of the first page), did you include copies of payslips or P60 or just the 1040 form since there's no W2 to submit?

rpjs

Nope, just the forms. As my wife said the IRS only cares about W2s which obviously she didn't have.

I was remarking to my new colleagues here in New York that the IRS unit in London must be marginally profitable at best. Most US ex-pats in the UK won't be earning enought to exceed the foreign income exclusion, and the UK-US tax treaty means that those who do (bankers and the like I guess) can deduct the tax they've paid to the UK.

C_C

Thanks so much, that's awesome!

hydrasoul

taken from a prev post below, i need the extra copies of the 1040 back to go with my visa application, therefore, do i send to London and ask for them to be sent back stamped received?

and also is the start/end date april to april as were sending to london and the P60 shows this too?

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=703341

ian-mstm

I'd just like to note in case it slipped past anyone... you are not required to include 2010 returns unless you want to. This will be true right up until April 15.

Ian

C_C

We did that with my husband's 2010 tax returns with the IRS in London. I sent them off on the 12th of january special delivery and it got delivered on the 13th. We included a note asking for the copy to be sent back to us stamped "received" and I even paid for special delivery postage. We also asked them to please send it back by the end of January, as I had my immigrant visa interview on the 1st of Feb. (yesterday).
We haven't received anything back up until now- no idea why, they may just be too busy at this time of the year. So I went to the interview yesterday with a simple photocopy of my husband's 2010 tax return. Didn't matter and we weren't even asked for his tax returns as he's employed in the UK. They only took our evidence of assets and all the co-sponsor documents we had from my mother in law.

The start/end date is January 1st to December 31st of the respective year. You do not need to include any P60s and such - they'll just take your simple tax returns showing the foreign-earned income.

Ian is right - 2010 returns aren't required till April. The only reason why my husband did his that early was because his income in 2010 was much higher than the 2009 one. But it didn't even get looked at in the end