Citizenship Interview - Tax related questions

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narayana7

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N-400 - Sent 06/14/2008
Received at TSC on 06/17/2008
Check cashed on 06/18/2008
NOA received- 06/26/2008
PD- 06/17/2008
FP-Notice received 06/27/2008
FP - Scheduled on 07/10/2008
FP - Completed on 07/10/2008
IL - Notice Date 07/22/2008
IL - Appointment 08/28/2008

I have received letter from USCIS - Lee Summit MO, reg Case File Review Notice / Interview Document Check List asking me to bring the following documents at the time of interview. Apart from other documents on following documents needs your comments and suggestions.

1) If you taken a trip outside the US that lasted for six months or more since becoming a Permenent Resident bring evidence your did not abandon your residence or terminate your employment in th US nor abandon your US abode(IRS return transcript or federal tax returns, rent or mortgage payments, utility bills etc).

My situation is as under:
I came here on GC family sponsored in the year June 2002 and stayed here for 4 months and then applied for Re entry permit left USA in Nov 2002. During this short stay I worked in a small company and filed my tax return for the year 2002 and I mentioned in the tax return my sister home address as my permenent address and for all my correspondence and GC purpose this address was my permenent address. For the year 2003 I did not file tax return as I was not here , however, this address used to be my permenent address. since I was staying with my sister house I did not pay any utility bills etc. How can I show evidence to the question that I did not abandon my residence in US?

Question No: 2

If you have taken a trip outside US that lasted 6 months or more since becoming permenent resident bring an original IRS1722 letter listing tax information for the past five years

My Situation here:

I came back in June 2004 and filed my tax returns regularly from 2004 I have tax return copies for 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 (4 years) the 5th year tax return i.e. for the year 2003, I did not file tax return 2003. However, I have filed tax return for the year 2002, Is it sufficient to show last 4 years tax returns and what should I tell at the time of interview.

I appreciate all if you can guide me with your experienced suggestions and guidance.

Thanks
Narayana7
 
So you left the US in Nov 2002 and returned June 2004 for a total trip of 19 months.
narayana7 said:
1) If you taken a trip outside the US that lasted for six months or more since becoming a Permenent Resident bring evidence your did not abandon your residence or terminate your employment in th US nor abandon your US abode(IRS return transcript or federal tax returns, rent or mortgage payments, utility bills etc).
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You'll need to provide proof that you maintained residency at your sister's place while outside the country for 19 months. This could be difficult to prove if you didn't have some sort of lease agreement with her or an affidavit attesting that her residence remained yours during your trip.

narayana7 said:
Question No: 2

If you have taken a trip outside US that lasted 6 months or more since becoming permenent resident bring an original IRS1722 letter listing tax information for the past five years

My Situation here:

I came back in June 2004 and filed my tax returns regularly from 2004 I have tax return copies for 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 (4 years) the 5th year tax return i.e. for the year 2003, I did not file tax return 2003. However, I have filed tax return for the year 2002, Is it sufficient to show last 4 years tax returns and what should I tell at the time of interview.
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You'll have to obtain the tax receipts for the last 5 years, including 2003. You may have to obtain a letter from the IRS stating that you did not have to file taxes in 2003 since you had no income.

What it comes down to is that you have to prove that for the 19 months you were outside the country, you continued to maintain your US residence and continued to file taxes each year. If your spouse went with you during the 19 month trip this may be even more difficult to prove since location of immediate family(spouse, children) during the trip is taken into consideration when deciding these matters.
 
Did you work at all in 2003? If so, you should have filed your US tax return as a US resident. US citizens AND permanent residents are subject to worldwide taxation (i.e., subject to US tax regardless of source of income). If you worked and didn't file a US tax return, that would be a bad fact indicating you broke continuous residency to be balanced against your good facts. Good facts would be things like:

- having bank statements, cell phone and credit card bills (since you don't have utility bills) sent to your sister's address
- maybe have your sister write an affidavit that you were living with her during the period as suggested by Bobsmyth

Frankly though, since you got a reentry permit, it seems like you WERE in fact residing aboard and did break continuous residency for purposes of the N-400 application. (The reentry permit indicates that you didn't intend to give up your greencard, which is different from the continuous residency requirement for application purposes.)

At worst, they'll deny your application at/after the interview and tell you to re-apply when you meet the application requirements. In your case, I think that would be 5 years minus 90 days from when you returned to the US in June 2004 (i.e., March 2009). (There is a 4 year plus 1 day rule for reapplying after you break continuous residency, but since you only spent 4 months in the US after you got your greencard I don't think that would apply to your case...but other more knowledgeable folks can weight in on that.)
 
Most certainly you did break residence with a 19 month absence, but I think you should safely be able to claim your case falls under the 4yr+1day rule.

The only problem I see is that you need to retrospectively file that 2003 tax return, because as others have pointed out, all LPRs and USCs have to pay tax on worldwide income.
 
Bobsmyth said:
So you left the US in Nov 2002 and returned June 2004 for a total trip of 19 months.

You'll need to provide proof that you maintained residency at your sister's place while outside the country for 19 months. This could be difficult to prove if you didn't have some sort of lease agreement with her or an affidavit attesting that her residence remained yours during your trip.


You'll have to obtain the tax receipts for the last 5 years, including 2003. You may have to obtain a letter from the IRS stating that you did not have to file taxes in 2003 since you had no income.

What it comes down to is that you have to prove that for the 19 months you were outside the country, you continued to maintain your US residence and continued to file taxes each year. If your spouse went with you during the 19 month trip this may be even more difficult to prove since location of immediate family(spouse, children) during the trip is taken into consideration when deciding these matters.
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Thanks for the feed back.

IRS has faxed a letter stating that they did not have tax record on file for the year 2003 against my SSN. Further, I did not have earn any income during my stay in the year 2003 when I was in other country. Will this letter be sufficient?

Next, my sister agreed to give affidavit stating that I had maintained my permanent resident at her place during 2003 and 2004 June. I have also maintained bank account during my absence in USA during 2002 to 2004.
Is there any specific format to give an affidavit? If so, I appreciate if some one can send a draft copy of the same.

Thanks
Narayana7
 
narayana7 said:
Thanks for the feed back.

IRS has faxed a letter stating that they did not have tax record on file for the year 2003 against my SSN. Further, I did not have earn any income during my stay in the year 2003 when I was in other country. Will this letter be sufficient?
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I'm thinking you'll also need to declare why you didn't file any taxes in 2003 (ie no income for that tax year).
narayana7 said:
Next, my sister agreed to give affidavit stating that I had maintained my permanent resident at her place during 2003 and 2004 June. I have also maintained bank account during my absence in USA during 2002 to 2004.
Is there any specific format to give an affidavit? If so, I appreciate if some one can send a draft copy of the same.

Thanks
Narayana7
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A signed sworn notarized affidavit stating that you resided with your sister during your time away should suffice.
You can check online on how to write up an affidavit:
http://www.rfp-templates.com/Free-Sample-Affidavit-Form.html


My only concern I see is if your immediate family (spouse) joined you during your travel, which may weight heavily against you in proving that you did not break residency ties in US.
What was the purpose of your extended travel?
 
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Just tell the immigration officer at the interview that you did not work (anywhere), had no income and therefore did not file a return for 2003. They may ask follow up questions about how were you able to support yourself abroad. If say, you were living with your spouse or your parents, that's a bad fact in terms of continuous residency in the US. Nothing to be done about it. Just be prepared.

Curious, but did you come back to the US at all to visit during the 19 months that you were out? Absences of over 12 months are automatically breaks in continuous residency. If you came back in the interim and if each of your absences considered separately are less than 6 months or if some are between 6 months and 1 year, it's at the interviewer's discretion whether you broke continuous residency (this is where the supporting documents like the affidavit come in and hopefully you have a nice, laid back interviewer). If you didn't come back at all, I would think you'd be denied outright at the interview and told to reapply later....
 
Bobsmyth said:
I'm thinking you'll also need to declare why you didn't file any taxes in 2003 (ie no income for that tax year).


A signed sworn notarized affidavit stating that you resided with your sister during your time away should suffice.
You can check online on how to write up an affidavit:
http://www.rfp-templates.com/Free-Sample-Affidavit-Form.html


My only concern I see is if your immediate family (spouse) joined you during your travel, which may weight heavily against you in proving that you did not break residency ties in US.
What was the purpose of your extended travel?
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Thanks for the update -

The fact when me and my family got GC we all came to USA and since I was new to this country and though I worked for couple of months here. During this time my wife diagonised with cancer and since I did not have enough resources to give her medical treatment and also I did not have permanent job and medical insurance for my family I did not have any option otherthan applying for Re-entry permit for all our family members and then left this country and give treatment for my wife for 18 months in my country, though the validity of my Reentry permit upto April 2006, we all came back to US in June 2004 and got a permanent job and also medical insurance for my family then further treatment to my wife was carried on till March 2007 and in the month of March 2007 she passed away.

This was the reason for my staying outside of US for those 19 months.

Appreciate, with all your responses and suggestions.

Thanks
Narayana7
 
Sorry to hear about your loss ..make sure to mention this during your interview since medical hardship can demonstrate the long travel was not due to financial gain or an otherwise purposeful break of US ties.
 
It seems 4 years plus 1 day rule applies

Sorry about your loss.

Yes continuous residence was broken but it is over 4 years and 1 day since he is back. In addition he filed for the years he worked. Since his return he has clearly establish his continuous residence again.

I am basically in the same situation. I got my GC in 8/2002, left 9/2002 to 2/2003 for 4.5 months; then left again 4/2003 to 11/2003 and last trip 12/2003 to 11/2004 for 11.5 months(two uncles and my grand mother passed). I had a bank account. I filed taxes after my last trip and I did not owe any for the time I was out. I filed late because I was told I don't owe taxes since my income was less than $76,000 but that was incorrect.

You establish residence once you receive your GC but you can break it as the law is very clear.
 
PR81502 said:
Sorry about your loss.

Yes continuous residence was broken but it is over 4 years and 1 day since he is back. In addition he filed for the years he worked. Since his return he has clearly establish his continuous residence again.
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The request to furnish tax receipts for the last 5 years came from USCIS, not as a suggestion from this forum. My guess is that USCIS wouldn't buy the argument that you only have to show proof of continuous residence for past 4 year + 1 day eventhough he may have since shown continuous residence.
 
Since the absence was longer than 1yr, there is no evidence, short of an approved N-470, which could preserve your residence for natz purposes. A reentry permit only protects your GC, and not your N-400 eligibility.

Your only options from this point are to explicitly claim benefit of the 4yr+1day rule during interview, or wait until you have accrued 5yrs uninterrupted residence. Probably the outcome of your case will depend on whether your filing date met that minimum 4yr+1day period from your exact return date in June 2004.
 
boatbod said:
Since the absence was longer than 1yr, there is no evidence, short of an approved N-470, which could preserve your residence for natz purposes. A reentry permit only protects your GC, and not your N-400 eligibility.

Your only options from this point are to explicitly claim benefit of the 4yr+1day rule during interview, or wait until you have accrued 5yrs uninterrupted residence. Probably the outcome of your case will depend on whether your filing date met that minimum 4yr+1day period from your exact return date in June 2004.
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Thanks for all in this forum who had shared their rich experience on this peculiar type of case.

I came back to US on June 12 2004 ( on Re-entry) and as per the rule 4Yr + 1day starts from June 13 2004 ( hope I am right) and I have sent N400 application on June 15 2008. I think I have met the minimum period to claim the benefit of the 4Yr+ 1Day rule.

Also suggest me is it OK to tell before the Interview officer exactly what had happened at home front, because of this I could not file Tax return for 2003.

Your comments please.

Thanks
Narayana7
 
Bobsmyth said:
You'll need to provide proof that you maintained residency at your sister's place while outside the country for 19 months. This could be difficult to prove if you didn't have some sort of lease agreement with her or an affidavit attesting that her residence remained yours during your trip.
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I was wondering if you do have a sample of this affidavit that you were referring to. Thanks :p
 
narayana7 said:
Also suggest me is it OK to tell before the Interview officer exactly what had happened at home front, because of this I could not file Tax return for 2003.
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I don't think it hurts you or helps you. Give the interviewer the tax receipts you have. If he asks about 2003, you can go into it, if you want. Your case is straightforward based on 4 year + 1 day rule. Make sure you bring evidence that you re-established residency in June 2004 - your old lease showing start date, utility bills, etc. Also, tell them that's your basis of applying when you did. Maybe take the excerpt of the statute with the rule with you.

I wouldn't bother with getting an affidavit from your sister etc. for the period you were out of the country. You're not trying to get that period counted as part of continuous residency since you're using 4 year + 1 day rule. Your re-entry permit is sufficient to prove that you did not intend to abandon your greencard.

Best of luck and sorry for your loss.
 
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sh1996 said:
Your re-entry permit is sufficient to prove that you did not intend to abandon your greencard.
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The question is not whether the OP abandoned his GC, but if he abandoned his US residency during his outside trip. Obtaining a re-entry permit is not proof that you did not abandon your US residence,lease/mortgage documentation is.
 
But even if the continuos residency is broken , isn't the OP fine as he has filed after 4 years + 1day?
 
Never volunteer anything! If the IO doesn't start asking questions about tax, I strongly recommend you don't bring the subject up.

You will however need to explicitly mention 4yr+1day, otherwise the IO might not consider that themselves.
 
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