rew1000

You won't need to send any paperwork in for your UK income. You should keep whatever paperwork you have safe, though, in case of audit.

In your case, it sounds like you are by default a "nonresident alien" for the purposes of 2007 tax (this would be because you don't have a greencard, and weren't physically present in the US for more than half the year). This would mean that you only declare your US income, but would, in general, be taxed at higher rate than residents/citizens.

There are things you could *opt* to do to change this:

A. Opt to be treated as resident for 2007 because your spouse is a resident alien/citizen. Then you would owe US tax on worldwide income, but could exclude foreign *earned* income. You could file jointly, and take the standard deduction.

B. Opt to be treated as non-resident for the first part of 2007 and resident from the day you arrived (a "dual-status" return). Then you would not have to declare your UK earnings from the first half of the year, but would pay the same rate of tax as a resident/citizen on your US income from the second half of the year. However, you would have to itemize deductions and couldn't file jointly.

Rete

This is what you posted originally and now your point #1 is saying just the opposite.

No, you aren't in whole. Why? Simply because the IRS will "consider" you a permanent resident for filing purposes, if you attach a letter requesting that they do so. Atleast this is the case for married filers.

This use to be a FAQ issue when the marriage-based FAQ was still part of the alt.visa.us.marriage-based forum before the FAQ was handed over to visajourney.

Peacefulove

Thanks for the advice!

paddingtongreen

in my point 1, I should have said a part year alien.

I didn't know of the option to file for the whole year. They didn't offer it to me, back then.

Just Jenney

Our details are a few years old now, but here's what we did:

• Mark worked January to April 2003 in the UK.
• He came to the US on a K1 visa in May 2003. We married the following month.
• He became a LPR in June 2004, well after we filed our 2003 tax returns.
• He did NOT work in the US at all for 2003.
• We used Turbo Tax Deluxe to help us figure our taxes out. We did not go to an accountant.
• We filed as married-joint.
• We included Form 2555 Foreign Earned Income Tax Exclusion for Mark's 2003 UK-earned income, which he earned prior to emigrating to the States.
• We did not submit any documentation at all to support Form 2555. None was required. We called the IRS about this and the agent confirmed it.
• Our 2003 tax return, with the Form 2555 included, was accepted with no problems whatsoever.
• If I recall correctly, we got a bigger refund because Mark's UK income was taken into account.

EDITED TO ADD: We did include a letter that explained that Mark was a resident alien for tax purposes.

~ Jenney

Peacefulove

Jenney,

Thanks for the informative post, that pretty much applies to my situation so I know what it is I need to do now