Beverly

Hi!
I hope someone can provide some assistance as I am befuddled...

I am USC married Jan 2002 to UK citizen. My understanding for filing
taxes is that he is considered a "resident alien" for the tax year
2002. Um, right?

He has no UK income for the year and only a very small US income.

For some reason, after filling out draft forms for both "married
filing jointly" and "married filing separately" it turns out that we
would get a much larger refund for "married filing
separately"...(about $475 altogether if jointly, about $600 for me and
$330 for him if separately! I don't know why. Maybe because he worked
only a few months of 2002?)

Question 1: If we file "married filing separately" does this in any
way hurt our AOS interview success? It seems like it would look
bad...but if we explain at the interview (if it were to come up) that
it was because of the bigger refund, wouldn't that be good enough?

Question 2: Is there something special we need to do - no matter how
we choose to file - that indicates his "pending" status as a "resident
alien"? Since he has no foreign income, I assume we just file as if he
was a US citizen? Or am I sadly mistaken? Do we need to "make the
choice" and include a letter as I have seen mentioned elsewhere? (This
part confuses me terribly, I'm afraid.)

Yikes! I have only ever filed single, 1040-EZ and now this! Anyway,
can anyone give any helpful advice? I have checked past messages on
this board but still am confused and reading the IRS pub 519 was even
more confusing. Hmmm. I must be far more simple than I had imagined...

Thank you!

--Beverly Leaney