topic Re: Married Couple both US Citizens but Wife and Kids moved to India mid year for personal reasons, what is the filing status to use? in Get your taxes done using TurboTax

Married Couple both US Citizens but Wife and Kids moved to India mid year for personal reasons, what is the filing status to use?

Blueclouds — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 10:45:37 GMT

We are a married couple and both US citizens. We typically use Turbo Tax to file our returns and use Married Filing Jointly status to file our taxes. Last year, my wife and kids had to make an urgent relocation to India in June to take care of ailing mother in law.

She moved within her company to an Indian entity while I continue to work in US. We wanted to file takes separately, since my Wife's taxes will be handled by her employer as it involves part US and part India employment.

I would like to file for my own taxes separately using TurboTax, which I have installed and ready to file. Can you please provide guidance on which filing status should I use? I am thinking Married filing separately in my case and only file for my portion of the taxes. Any guidance will be helpful.

PS - I have applied extension and prepaid taxes when I filed for extension based on an estimate from last year filing.

Thank you

Re: Married Couple both US Citizens but Wife and Kids moved to India mid year for personal reasons, what is the filing status to use?

Anonymous_ — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 02:47:41 GMT

Re: Married Couple both US Citizens but Wife and Kids moved to India mid year for personal reasons, what is the filing status to use?

Blueclouds — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 13:35:44 GMT

Thank you! Appreciate the support.

Re: Married Couple both US Citizens but Wife and Kids moved to India mid year for personal reasons, what is the filing status to use?

pk — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 18:49:49 GMT

@Blueclouds , Namaste ji

Having gone through your post, I would have the following suggestion:

1. You can still file as Married Filing Joint ( MFJ)

(a) Under personal income Tab, enter your W-2 details.

(b) Then ( I think it is next screen ), choose "I will choose what I work on". This would then provide you a list of different types of incomes ( grouped by major categories) Go down the list till you see Foreign Earned Income and Exclusion -- FEIE.

(c) Select FEIE and now you will be asked questions about your wife's income etc. This is filling out form 2555 ---> Her Tax home is India, Her total Foreign Income in US$, when did she arrive in India XX/XX/XXXX, when did she establish Foreign Tax home ( the first 24 hr day after arrival, because you arrive in India early in the morning, few hrs. past mid-night etc. ) Go through all the screens carefully. What you should end-up with is that her income is all excluded from US taxes. Go to forms mode and make sure that this is so.

(d) You will essentially end -up paying US taxes ONLY on your income except that your tax rate would be a bit higher -- because it uses the world income for the couple to compute tax bracket and then deducts the US taxes allocated to her excluded income. This also allows the standard deduction for MFJ and not MFS.

If you need more help on this , you can add to this thread or PM me ( if the questions are not of interest to general user -- just NO personally Identifiable Information).

Is there more I can do for you ?

Namaste ji

Re: Married Couple both US Citizens but Wife and Kids moved to India mid year for personal reasons, what is the filing status to use?

Blueclouds — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 09:03:46 GMT

Thank you @pk ji! thank you for your guidance and support. I will follow your instructions and get back to you if I have any questions.

One question I have: Is married filing jointly preferable over married filing separately in my case? I am asking because, my wife's employer is taking care of her taxes this year through a third party accounting firm. Please let me know.

Thank you!!

Re: Married Couple both US Citizens but Wife and Kids moved to India mid year for personal reasons, what is the filing status to use?

pk — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 18:48:20 GMT

@Blueclouds my two cents ( and if I assume that your wife will eventually come back to USA and work either at the same entity or a different on), would be to let the accounting firm do the her Indian filing ( as only she would have Indian tax liability, and you do the US return covering MFJ. I say this because when she comes back you will have to pick-up from what the accountant have done for her US filing ( She as a US person is taxed on her world income for the calendar year by the USA and Distinct from her Indian taxes. I fully understand that this will be hard on you now but is better prepared for later.

The other option is you file as MFS, do your own taxes ( not that your state taxes may get a bit confusing if you live in a community property state like CA ). Then when her filings are completed, you do a dummy prepare it again on your own for the wife -- this way you will be familiar with what was done by the accountants. Will make the future transition easier.

If you have time you could try it both ways and see which is more tax beneficial -- doing it as joint will raise your tax bill a bit ( higher marginal tax rate possibly ) but doing MFS will reduce your own deduction. I say this because depending your individual world incomes it may or may not make a huge difference.

I hope this helps.

Namaste ji

Re: Married Couple both US Citizens but Wife and Kids moved to India mid year for personal reasons, what is the filing status to use?

Blueclouds — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 23:17:19 GMT

@pk ji, Thank you so much! you have been extremely kind and supportive. Just wanted to understand your instructions correctly and please confirm.

- Recommendation is to Married Filing Jointly

- I have a W2 for myself

- I have a W2 from my wife for the portion of time in 2023 (Jan to May) when she worked in US

- I have my wife's Indian tax return for the portion of time in 2023(Jun-Dec) when she worked in India

So in Turbo Tax, I would do MFJ and enter both of our W2s.

I will then use FEIE - Foreign Earned Income and Exclusions to enter the Indian Income for my wife from Jun to Dec.

By doing this, I assume it will account for the world income for my wife, and we will be paying taxes only for our W2 income is US and the Indian Income will be excluded as the taxes already paid to India on Indian income.

I hope my understanding is correct, please confirm.

Thank you

Re: Married Couple both US Citizens but Wife and Kids moved to India mid year for personal reasons, what is the filing status to use?

Blueclouds — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:17:55 GMT

Hello @pk ji, I followed the instructions,

- Did MFJ

- Entered both US W2s

- Entered India Income under FEIE

The overall tax due substantially increased, which is fine because the overall income increased when adding India Income.

However, It did not exclude the entire India income and it only excluded ;around 40% of it.

Also please let me know where do I report the taxed that were already paid on the India Income during India tax filing?

Thank you

Re: Married Couple both US Citizens but Wife and Kids moved to India mid year for personal reasons, what is the filing status to use?

pk — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 01:26:50 GMT

@Blueclouds ,

(a) under wages you ONLY enter the two W-2 s

(b) Under Foreign Earned Income Exclusion you enter the Foreign income that is included for the period in the tax year ( as you said June xx till 12/31/2023 )

(c) When you are filling out the form 2555 that determines the exclusion amount, your 12 month test period would be Jun XX+1 ( i.e. the day after she arrived in India ) 2023 to JunXX+1 , 2024. This would exclude the maximum that you can and that is earning from 2023.

(d) your actual tax rate will also go up a little because you will pushed into a higher bracket.

(e) Also note that if she is NOT participating in India Social Security equivalent, then for the earnings in India she will/may also be liable for the 15.3% of her foreign income as Self-Employment Tax ( FICA here in the US for wage earners but at double the rate.

(f) Because US is not taxing the foreign income ( up to the excluded income amount) there is NO Foreign Tax Credit on that --- only the foreign tax unexcluded income ( i.e. is being taxed by both USA and India ) is eligible for foreign tax credit.

Is there more I can do for you ?

Re: Married Couple both US Citizens but Wife and Kids moved to India mid year for personal reasons, what is the filing status to use?

VballGirl66 — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 02:38:24 GMT

Curious why you wouldn't want the accounting firm to handle both the US and Indian tax filings? I don't find Turbo Tax to be user friendly when calculating the foreign earned income exclusion and foreign tax credit.

That said, agree with everything above that you can continue filing MFJ, claiming dependents etc. Your spouse's earnings are eligible for exclusion once she meets either the physical presence test (330 days/365 day period. This is a rolling 12 month period. Assume she met this by 10/15/24) or bona fide residence being their a full calendar year. You are only eligible to exclude income for the qualifying days in India.

Re: Married Couple both US Citizens but Wife and Kids moved to India mid year for personal reasons, what is the filing status to use?

pk — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 16:32:40 GMT

@VballGirl66 an interesting question. Clearly I am biased to taxpayers doing their own taxes to the extent of their ability or feeling of security.

In this particular case, where H is resident in the US and has ONLY US tax filing requirement and the S has both US and Indian Income and therefore tax filings for both countries, the options are :

(a) (1) Each taxpayer files his or her own returns for both the USA and India -- MFS for the tax year 2023 or 2024 i.e., till they are both back in the same country. This would allow the H to file as usual and the S would use accounting firm ( very familiar with India taxes but may or may not be familiar with the US taxes ). Additionally the accounting firm's business connection is with the Indian entity.

(2) This would still leave the H + S to reorganize and pick-up the filings again when S returns back to USA -- a formidable effort often . Everything has to be co-related and copacetic.

I say this from experience , when I was employed overseas by a US Multinational. Coopers & Lybrand took care of my US and local/national filings. An additional component was gross -ups. It took me two years of recreation of their work so that I could take over once their support vanished. Therefore , I see this as a major impediment to getting back to your own. And this case is reasonably simple.

(b) The other option is as I described do all the USA ones ( which will be carried forward after S returns to USA and the basis for ) and let the accountants do the Indian one ( they are much familiar with that ).

I have nothing against accountants and/or tax professionals ( I was one for many years ) doing your taxes. However , I do think given that the availability of good stable tax software ( accountants also use very similar products without "step-by-step " feature ) makes it reasonable for most taxpayers to do their own. Additionally , in case of a challenge by the IRS, it is the taxpayer whom is on the hook ( defense by a CPA or EA or Tax Attorney is extremely expensive ).

You asked and so I responded -- granted this is my opinion only ( nothing to do TurboTax or any other entity ).

Re: Married Couple both US Citizens but Wife and Kids moved to India mid year for personal reasons, what is the filing status to use?

Blueclouds — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 12:41:45 GMT

Thanks to both @pk and @VballGirl66

I learned a lot from this interaction and I feel a bit more confident in filing following your instructions and recommendations.

I did MFJ, made use of FEIE, I think TurboTax Premier handled it well. I have forwarded the returns to the accounting firm supporting my wife for a review and any amendments needed.

Thank you @pk ji! you have been great support!