@rc11 you basically have two choices ----
(1) because you entered the country in the last quarter of the year and you are trying to exclude from US taxes earnings from a foreign source prior to entering the USA as an immigrant, you and your spouse could file as Married Filing Sep ( MFS ). This would allow you to claim Non-resident alien till the date of entry and therefore ONLY US sourced income during the Non-Resident period will count -- since there is none you essentially file a short year 09/13/2019 thru 12/31/2019 on form 1040 claiming world earnings during that period.
(2) File as Married Fling Joint and this would be for the whole year and be taxed on your world income -- it would be much more convoluted but will achieve exclusion of your foreign earnings up to the limit ( Jan 1 , 2019 through Sep 8, 2019 ) . However, because your earnings were self-employed , you would also be subject to Self-Employment Tax ( 15.3% of net earnings for Social Security and Medicare ). even on the excluded amount.
Is there more I can do for you ?
