scampbel31

My wife has her interview scheduled for next week and we have a question on the US tax situation. As an expat we get an automatic extension until June 15th to finish our taxes. Though as we were filling out the documents it said that we need to have the three most recent years taxes. I am in the process of working on the current years taxes that are due on June 15th. The reason why it is taking so long for us to file is because I am trying to file as married filing jointly and get an ITIN for my wife. As many of you know this process is manual and you need to send in information for it which would not make it possible for us to file before her interview. The other option I have is to file married filing separately and submit my taxes immediately. The taxes go up several thousand dollars so it is not an ideal situation if we can avoid it. The argument that my CPA made was that it takes 4-8 weeks for the IRS to process the returns and even if I submit MFS today it will still be in process. She suggested that I could provide the copy of the married filing jointly to them that we have complete along with the proof of the extension. She offered to write a letter that the return was fully completed and we were working on the ITIN. Lastly, she suggested also providing 2013 return which would meet the 3 year filed returns requirement. As a side note I have also included my US bank accounts which are well above the poverty line. Question is how strict are they on this IRS requirement and do they follow the rules of the IRS or is it a hard line where they say it must be filed no matter what? Any suggestions?

Thanks I think I will put USA as to not create any problems for the submission.

I know many questions have been asked about the domicile issue, but I don't recall seeing anything that specifically stated what everyone put in the box Part 4 #5 "Country of Domicile". I have been living and working in China coming up on 7 years now and am not sure what to put in this box. The directions say "Indicate the country where you maintain your principle residence and where you plan to reside in the foreseeable future". I reside in China, but I plan to move back to the USA so this is not an "and" statement for me. Meaning that its not one way or the other but a combination of US and China. We are heading to Guangzhou next week for the interview and I want to make sure that we have the right information in that box. The supporting evidence that we are planning on moving back is not a problem, but I am not sure what to put in the box. What did everyone else put? China or USA? Also, I am a little concerned about putting USA as I don't want there to be a misunderstanding with the IRS or state tax agencies that we had the intention of coming back to that particular state because I gave up my residency in the state I moved from so that I can move to China. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.