I am a US citizen and my husband is a foreign national, but for 2016-2018 he was in the US on a student visa (technically a non resident) but he got an ITIN to work at the college and we filed jointly treating him as a resident for those tax years. In December of 2018 he took a job in Belgium and lived there for the entire 2019 year. I worked in the US until July and then I relocated to Belgium in November of 2019. I'm having trouble figuring out the best way to file for us now as it seems that if I file jointly it will take his income into account but not give him the exemption or credit for taxes paid, so I owe quite a bit. If I decide to file separately, I owe less but then can no longer contribute to an IRA, and would I still need to file for him so that he does not lose the resident for tax purposes status? The IRS has a lot of scary language about only being able to make that election once. None of the tax prep software seems to recognize people filing joint but being resident in other countries, but I'm not sure that matters anyway as he otherwise has no legal status in the US. I'm overwhelmed to say the least...
