@vc76 As I understand your situation
1. You a F-1 visa student have completed your exempt period and thus 2022 ( 2017 through 2021 were exempt ) is the first year you are filing as Resident for tax purposes.
2. Your spouse on F-2 and child also on F-2 have been living here in the USA all this time.
3. The question now is how to file for 2022 tax year.
Generally , and absent any independent adjustment to the dependent visa, the tax status of the dependent is the same as that of the main visa holder. Thus once you became a resident for tax purposes, your spouse also became a Resident for Tax purposes. Thus you can indeed file as Married Fling Joint ( MFJ) and obviously this means all her world income ( if any , and just yours ) is taxed by the USA.
Now to be able to file a joint return or any return for that matter one must have a TIN ( Tax Identification Number --- SSN, ITIN or ATIN ). Since your spouse does not have any TIN, you would need to file for that , either separately or along with your return -- in ether case the processing of your return ( any refund issuance ) would be delayed .
For filing along with your return , you prepare the return using TurboTax, use a dummy SSN for spouse and child ( you could use your own SSN and replace the last four digits with things like 4000 and 5000 for the spouse and child respectively), then print the return, replace the dummy SSNs with " N R A ", sign date by both you and spouse. Next download the ITIN application W-7, attache all the documentation required , and send the whole thing by secure post to the IRS. This will allow IRS to issue ITIN retrospectively and then process your return -- but it will take time.
Is there more I can do for you ?
