@mrhodes08 , thank you for the additional information. I understand the situation to be :
1. You , a US person ( citizen ) have your tax home in Japan ( US military / SOFA )
2. Your spouse is a Japanese national, lives with you
3. Spouse does not have a TIN ( SSN / ITIN).
(a) As an employee of the US admin / subdivisions, your earnings are US sourced. And under SOFA arrangement , Japan is not taxing this income -- so no double taxation.
(b) You can file as MFS ( Married Filing Sep --- your standard deduction then is like a single person.
)c) A better option for most married person is to file MFJ ( Married Filing Joint ). To be able to use this your spouse must agree to be taxed by US as a resident. For that she needs a TIN ( SSN or ITIN ).
1. This will mean that you have to prepare the return using a dummy SSN, when all done print/sign date etc. Her income needs to be included as part of your joint world income.
2. Note that because her tax home is foreign ( her income is foreign sourced ), you could take advantage of Foreign Earned Income exclusion -- Japan will tax her income and under US-Japan tax treaty, her income is not taxed by the US.
3. You and your spouse need to sign a letter requesting her to be treated as a resident for tax purposes.
4. You have to prepare the W-7 ( down load from the IRS site -- it is a fillable .pdf . Include all the docs required by the instruction of W-7. The local IRS office or an agent can certify the copies of the documents. Then send everything to the IRS
The above is a summary . If you need more detailed help, you can either post here or PM me -- either way I will be happy to walk you through this whole thing.
Konnichiua
pk
