Taxes Recently married canadian living in the states

Last year (2008) I lived in colorado under an F1 visa going to school. I then got married in Sept. 2008 to an american, and shortly after applied for my green card. Dec 29th 2008 I recieved my work permit and a travel card and began working in Jan.

Finally in march (2009) I recieved my green card.

I'm very confused as to what I need to file for taxes and where, and I also didn't realize taxes were due so much earlier in States then Canada, so I am rushing to get them done. However, the more I read the more confused I get.

I do not intend on moving back to Canada anytime soon, however, since I got my greencard in march, should I be filing a exit return this year or next year? (I own no homes, and only have 1 bank account with limited funds and did not work in 2008)

Currently I plan on filing jointly with my husband here in the states, but was wondering if there is additional paperwork I have to fill out for the US tax return. In canada I was planning to file as usual, but now I'm not sure that is the correct thing to do.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

You can file your Canadian return and have that as your last tax resident year, because you'd basically be considered a resident of the US for tax purposes in the year that you applied for permanent resident status.

Your US returns should be a fairly straight forward married - joint return, as far as I know. Steven knows more about taxes though. Hurts my head

Well it sounds as though you weren't working last year and you were essentially a foreign student the whole year as well because your AOS wasn't completed until this year.

So basically you file a 1040NR and an 8843 for the whole of 2008 and a regular T1 for Canada for 2008 for wherever you're from (assuming you are over the reporting limits). On your T1 state that you left on 31st December on page 1.

Then next year you just file jointly with your husband on 1040.

It should take you about ten minutes to do 1040NR and 8843 if you have little or no US-source income, you may not even need to file 1040NR, read the instructions.

The important thing to do is to make sure the CRA is aware you've left and ditto for any Canadian banks you hold accounts with. You can still keep your RRSP if you have one, but it must be declared to the IRS next year on Form 8891.

Thank you so much for such prompt responses and for solving my issue. I really appreciate it!