GC & tax filing question

K

kmj

New Member
I came to US a year ago on H4 visa. Thereafter, I got H1 visa and started working and applied for GC. Even before coming to US, I have been working in India. My husband has been working in US for four years. While I was in india, we have been filing joint US tax returns (I had ITIN number) with me being Home maker with no US income. This is because, I never worked in US. So our CPA has suggested that while filing US tax returns, we have to mention Home maker as my profession.

In my labor application as well as H1 applications, I had mentioned previous Indian experience. That would imply that I should have earned some income in India and it should have been added to our tax returns here. (As a matter of fact, I hardly earned any income during my previous job in India. The company was a bankrupt - I did the job mostly for academic interests and experience).

Just because I have mentioned previous indian experience, would it automatically mean that I should have earned income in India and that should have been included in the joint tax returns while I was in India ? In the joint tax returns forms, will my profession as home maker cause any issues ? Will it conflict with the experience I had put in my labor application ? Will the INS/IRS question it ?

Please advice.
 
I am fairly certain that you did not meet the US IRS criteria of resident individual for tax purposes (see IRS pubs: instructions for filing 1040) while you were in India. Yet, you were certainly married, and had an ITIN, so your husband filed a joint tax return.

Your question should really be posed to a tax consultant, and their answer used to reply to any BCIS query, which, in my opinion, is unlikely.

The question for the tax consultant is:

In a joint US tax return,
(a) can a joint return be filed if one spouse does not meet the criteria of resident individual for tax purposes
(b) if yes, then does the income of the spouse that does not meet the criteria resident individual for tax purposes, need to be included in the tax return
(c) can the spouse, therefore, be listed as homemaker for tax purposes

The answers can form the basis of further strategy.
 
If you and your husband are not US citizens or PR then you won’t have to pay taxes on income earned overseas.
 
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