Abondoning Legal Perm Residence and Taxes filing jointly --HELP!

Here is the scenario.

My husband has had to abandon his green card because we have remianed out the of the USA for over a year.  So he is now going to be just a normal UK citizen married to a US citizen.  At some time we may choose to go back to the USA.

We lived in the USA for 3.5 years prior to moving here and filed every year jointly. 

I am a full time student here in the UK.

We have not earned any money in the USA in this tax year, but do have some checking and savings accounts and I have my IRA's . 

Immigration wise I think we should still file so in the event we return we have proof of realtionship and all that.

BUT

Do we have to file?  What do we file since we earned nothing? 

In the UK he has worked, but not enough to pay tax to the USA... also can we still file jointly even if he is no longer a legal permanent resident?

HELP!!!!

1)  Your hubby.  For US tax purposes, he has NOT given up his greencard until he files Form 8854.  You can get this off the IRS website at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8854.pdf and the instructions for filling in the form are at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8854.pdf .

2)  So, for 2005, you file jointly as normal (assuming 2005 is the year they took away his greencard).  You file Form 1040 and Form 2555EZ to exclude your husband's non-US income.  If your husband was in the US >35 days during 2005, he files Form 1116 instead.  File form 1116 also to claim a reduction if wages were in excess of $80,000.

3)  For 2006 onwards, only you have to file.  Since you have no income, you don't have to file at all. 

4)  But, you can elect to file jointly forever if you wish.  This is not required for immigration purposes.  Ask a lawyer if this will gain you any brownie points - if it does, then by all means make the election to file jointly and keep it up.  If it doesn't get you brownie points, there's no reason why you should spend so much time, effort, and money on filing unnecessary paperwork.

Thank you!