Thanks for your reply. In previous years, I did indeed file MFS. However, because I now have a child (US citizen with SSN), I'm under the impression that I now qualify to file as Head of Household, at least according to this statement from the IRS website for international taxpayers: "If you are a U.S. citizen married to a nonresident alien, you may qualify to use the head of household tax rates. You are considered unmarried for head of household purposes ifyour spouse was a nonresident alien at any time during the year and you do not choose to treat your nonresident spouse as a resident alien." Please correct me if I am interpreting this guidance incorrectly.
If I am correct in my interpretation, I hope a tax expert can help me clarify my last question:
I'm unclear if the "dummy SSN" that shows up on my 1040 (filled in so that I can get through the software) is an "error" by the turbotax software due to it not having the capability to properly deal with non-resident spouses, or if this is a piece of information that is necessary on my 1040. If the former, then is it correct to assume that I should white-out the dummy SSN and leave that field blank (spouse's SSN)? If the latter, then I should white-out and replace the dummy SSN with "NRA", correct?
Thanks for any clarification on this issue.
