I am married filing jointly, my wife has never been to US so she does not have a W2. Does this mean I have to enter her earnings as best I can?

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Jun 2019 03:13:51 GMT

W2 form is a US document so she wont have that. Then I need to look at her country's earnings document for 2016 and do my best to answer for her?

Are you both United States citizens (not just you)? If s...

GeoffreyG — Sat, 01 Jun 2019 03:13:53 GMT

Are you both United States citizens (not just you)? If so, then you can safely translate her foreign earnings into US dollars, and justify that with whatever reasonable, published, exchange rate you choose. As a US citizen working and living abroad, if she is not employed by the US government, she may be further eligible for the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, and the advantages of using Form 2555 to reduce your joint US income taxes.

On the other hand, if your wife is not a US citizen, then your tax filing situation becomes much more complicated. Please continue reading for a further detailed discussion.

If you are a United States citizen (or a Permanent Resident) and are married to a non-citizen, then you have some options on how to file your USA tax return, although current United States tax laws do not make this process particularly easy.

Option # 1: You can file your US tax return as Married Filing Separately (which is usually a somewhat unfavorable tax filing status), and just report your own income there. TurboTax can walk you through this process, and help you create the necessary Form 1040. If your spouse does not already have an ITIN number, or a Social Security number, then this return would have to further be printed and paper filed. If she has a valid ITIN or SSN, then the tax return should be eligible for e-filing.

Option # 2: You can elect to include your nonresident spouse on your US income tax return (which may be more or less tax favorable than Married Filing Separately); and file as Married Filing Jointly; but you would need to file a paper Form 1040 tax return in order to do so. The somewhat complicated process for completing this type of tax return is explained at the IRS.gov website here:

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/u-s-citizens-and-resident-aliens-abroad-nonresident-alien-spouse

Such a tax return (Option # 2) is best done by a professional tax preparer.

If you choose Option # 1 and have difficultly with that, then having the tax return prepared by a professional is also an option here too.

Please note that this treatment assumes that your spouse is indeed legally a non-US citizen and a nonresident. If your spouse instead were a citizen or a US resident, then you could just file your US Form 1040 tax return normally (as Married Filing Jointly, or Married Filing Separately), even though the spouse may be physically living out of the country; and the above two options would not apply. This is the same explanation that began this answer, just stated somewhat differently.

Also, you can read the complete answer to a similar question that was asked here about a year ago. There is some good information in there as well:

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/3089728-how-can-i-file-taxes-with-my-new-foreign-spouse-who-doesn-t-have-a-social-security-number

Thanks for asking this important question.

topic I am married filing jointly, my wife has never been to US so she does not have a W2. Does this mean I have to enter her earnings as best I can? in Get your taxes done using TurboTax

I am married filing jointly, my wife has never been to US so she does not have a W2. Does this mean I have to enter her earnings as best I can?

Are you both United States citizens (not just you)? If s...