You can choose to file as Married Filing Separately or Married Filing Jointly. If you choose to leave him off of your return, you would use Married Filing Separately. When you do this, it does make you ineligible for certain tax credits. Also, if you file a joint return with him and he has no income, you would likely have a lower tax burden since your standard deduction would be $27,700 instead of $13,850. This means that much more of your income is not taxed.
Also, if he doesn't have a job but does get Social Security, then he will need to file a return as filing separately makes 85% of his social security taxable.
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