Hey there,
I worked all year in US on H1B visa, I got married in August 2019 and my wife moved to the US in November. She had income in Romania before moving to the US. Based on the presence test, she is a nonresident for tax purposes and we would like to file a joint return and I would like her to be treated as a US resident for tax purposes, hence filing for ITIN (she is not eligible to get a SSN).
Based on the information that I've been reading online I need to follow these steps:
Federal:
1. Apply for an ITIN using a completed W-7.
2. Attach a declaration saying that my wife was a nonresident alien in 2019 and I was a resident alien.
3. Attach the W-2 from my employer to the return.
4. File for federal by mail and attach the W-7 form plus supporting documents.
State:
1. File state simply by mailing the completed and signed forms from Turbotax and say "ITIN applied for" in the SSN part.
I have a few questions in this process:
1. Foreign income for my wife: there is no such thing as W-2 in Romania. We calculated the income based on what she earned each month and did the conversion from RON to USD based on the conversion rate at the date of receiving the paycheck. I added the total amount on Turbotax in the Foreign Earned Income section of Income section. Do I need any supporting documents attached to the return? Where does this income go on the final form? I do see it added in Box 1 in the wages section, but how does the IRS know this is coming from foreign sources if my W-2 only includes the US ones.
2. "Attach a declaration saying that my wife was a nonresident alien in 2019" - Does anyone have an example of a declaration, does this needs to be certified by a notary or just our signature will do?
3. W-7 supporting documents: My wife's Romanian passport would be just great for the supporting documents, but she doesn't want to stay without an ID for 60 days, so I was looking for alternatives. It looks pretty hard to get a certified copy, so I was looking at the National Identification Card. Do you think a Romanian National Identification Card would be acceptable? We could send the original one, it has a photo, issue and validation date, Date of Birth is not explicit (it is in the unique id number of the card, for example if the id starts with [social security number removed], means the person is a female, born on 21st of August 1992). Do you think sending the original Romanian National ID would work?
4. Filing online is much easier, as I don't have to worry about supporting documents. But with filing by mail, do I need to provide any supporting documents with the state and federal return? Things like my wife's worldwide income calculations, my W2, 1099 documents, etc.
Thank you,
Marius
