I 485 and Taxes ( PLEASE HELP )

A

asyleeeeeeeee

Registered Users (C)
Hello,

I'm now a resident of California who lived in a different state last year. I worked in two different states but I only filed for my taxes from one state ( and didn't file for my taxes for the other state at all ).

I've already taken my biometrics and I'm now starting to wonder if I will get rejected for not filing the taxes properly. I made about 14k last year and I can't afford an attorney due to severe hardship. Please help. Im in desperate situation.
 
File taxes for the other state. What's your problem? The taxes aren't going to be high if your income was just $14K. Have you calculated how much you would owe in the unfiled state?
 
Use a Tax Accountant

I would suggest you use the service of a Tax Consultant that would cost significantly less than an attorney and resolve the Tax issue. Alternatively you can make a visit to the IRS where you owe taxes and the staff will definately help you resolve the issue in your favor.

I would think its hard to get away with not paying taxes unless you are a tax expert. The IRS will come after you anyway.

For an income of 14 K, I doubt if there would be any tax at all. Plus there is no double tax for living in 2 states. You only pay the tax amount of the state with the higher tax.
 
Appreciate your replies. I filed for it via Turbo tax and it showed that I was going to owe about 700 bucks so I decided not to file for taxes.

Also, you didn't respond to my original concern - Will it have any effect in my GC application? Its been almost 3 months since I filed for it. Does violating GC have any relation with GC application's denial?
 
asyleeeeeeeee said:
Appreciate your replies. I filed for it via Turbo tax and it showed that I was going to owe about 700 bucks so I decided not to file for taxes.
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Turbo tax is not so good at multi-state calculations. And there are rules for offsetting one state's tax with another. So if you have already filed and paid taxes in your state of residence for the whole year's income, you can get back much of that money to pay to the other state for portion of income that is taxable to that other state. The end result may be that you owe little or nothing more out of your pocket, even if $700 is to be paid to that other state.

And it's probably less than $700, because that other state is only entitled to tax income derived from that state, which presumably is a lot less than the full year's $14000. It looks like that $700 was based on the full year, not the months/days you spent in the other state.

But the answer is not to simply don't file. That will lead to penalties and interest and things will get worse when they catch up with you.

Does violating GC have any relation with GC application's denial?
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I suppose you meant violating the tax laws. For state taxes, probably not, unless you get arrested for failing to pay the tax (which is unlikely for these small sums of money). But it can be a big problem with citizenship.
 
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Jackolantern, do you think that the fact that I didn't file for taxes will have any effect on my application?

I'm going to rectify the error on my part, no doubt but I wish to know.

Anybody else, please?
 
It is very unlikely to cause a problem with your I-485 if you don't get arrested for it.

But make sure you resolve it before citizenship, where they do ask about filing taxes.

Now that peak tax season is gone, and state tax returns are generally much simpler than Federal, you can probably find a tax accountant who will handle yours for cheap (like $100). Given their light workload at this time of year, they will often negotiate and allow discounts.
 
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