We live overseas and have a baby daughter.
We haven't been able to get her a social security number. I claimed her as a dependent and listed her passport number instead.
When I tried to e-file, my return was rejected because I listed her as a dependent and she does not have a SSN on file that can be verified. According to Turbotax, it is NOT possible to e-file without a matching SSN. You have to print and mail such a return. I want to e-file for simplicity.
Due to the foreign earned income exclusion, there is NO TAX BENEFIT from claiming her as a dependent. I deleted her from my return using Turbotax and the tax due is the same.
Therefore, for simplicity, I was going to just exclude her from our return so I can e-file.
Is there any downside or risk to this? Any potential future complications?
I was able to claim her as a dependent last year b/c I used an individual tax preparer who has different software that accepted the return without a social security number. So she would be listed as s dependent for 2018 taxes, not listed for 2019 taxes, and presumably listed for 2020 taxes once we get a SSN for her.
