US citizen with a foreign national wife living abroad

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
July 13, 2019
5 replies
39 views

I am a US citizen, my 2 year old daughter is a dual US/foreign national, my wife is a foreign national, both live abroad and have never been to the US.

Should I just file as single with no children as I am not trying to claim anything from with with no SSN or the other one?

Critter

Level 15

If you are a US citizen and your spouse does not have a Social Security number or an ITIN and you are not applying for an ITIN with the tax return then you can only file your tax return as Married Filing Separately. Where asked to enter the spouse's Social Security number enter 999-88-9999. You can only print and mail your tax return, it cannot be e-filed. When you print the tax return erase the Social Security number for your spouse and manually enter NRA for non-resident alien.

See this TurboTax support FAQ for the procedure to print and mail a tax return using the online editions - https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1944348-how-do-i-print-and-mail-my-return-in-turbotax-online

Your spouse would only need to report their income if you were filing your tax return as Married Filing Jointly, applying for an ITIN with the tax return and you would be providing a statement with your tax return that you want your Nonresident Alien Spouse Treated as a Resident. See IRS Publication 54 Tax Guide for U.S. Citizens and Resident Aliens Abroad pages 6 and 7 - https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p54.pdf

Go to this IRS website for ITIN information - https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/general-itin-information

tfpsciencesAuthor

Level 2

Thanks. I had read that in other threads but they were saying that writing in NRA is no longer acceptable but then someone quoted the 1040 instructions where it still says if they are no eligible to get a SSN or whatever to put NRA.