How to report income of foreign spouse?

[manisha1552]

Hi Team,

I am on H1B and my husband is on H4. I got married last year and my husband came to US this year. My husband was employed outside of US (in another country, India) last year.

I am filing as Married Joint Filing including my W-2 and using W-7 to get his ITIN number. I am attaching a statement for my spouse to be treated as a Resident Alien for the tax year.

My question is since my spouse does not have a W2, should I report his income (converted to US dollar as per IRS conversion rate of 2022) under "My Other Income (1h)" or do I have to attach any form for it? My husband's income for the year was less than 10K$ for the entire year. 

Another question, should I mention the 'Occupation' of my husband as `Employed` or `Unemployed` given my husband was employed but in another country.

[RalphH1 · Accepted solution]

No form or statement is required regarding the income from India (as the IRS will contact you if they have any questions). Normally it doesn’t hurt to provide some basic info about such income if you’re mailing the return in anyway, but in this case we don’t want to give the Austin ITIN unit any extra documents to get confused about(!).

Line 1h is indeed where that income would go (assuming it’s wages). In TurboTax, you can enter this in “Other Earned Income.” Or (even better, if you have some more time) you could enter it in the “Foreign Earned Income and Exclusion” section (see this), and possibly exclude it from income. (A non-resident making the election can actually do this, which I was surprised to learn just now!)

Regarding his occupation, I would suggest summarizing his work in India, since you’re reporting income from that. Also, I heartily recommend double- and triple-checking your W-7 entries, as the IRS can be very picky about that form (with very lengthy delays)!

Welcome to the U.S., @manisha1552! (Unless you’ve been here a while. In that case, welcome to your husband!)

[pk]

@manisha1552 , Having gone through your post and the reply of @RalphH1  ( which I generally agree with ), I would like to add some context first :

(a) As I understand the situation you a US person ( citizen / GreenCard ? Resident for Tax purposes )  for 2021 tax year, got married to a Non-Resident Alien in 2022 .  ( please confirm/ correct  my assumptions --- yes?)

(b)  Your Husband entered USA in 2023 ( or is it in 2022 ?).--- need the exact date and visa status ( H-4 ?)

(c) Husband was employed in India  with a local entity ( not US govt. or any of its subs. )

(d) You now wish to file jointly with your husband for tax year 2022 and would be willing to expose his foreign income to US taxes  by filing a W-7 for issuance of ITIN ( not eligible for SSN, because of H-4 non-work visa? ) and a request signed by both of you  for him to be considered  a US resident for tax purposes for the year 2022.

(e) I am assuming  that what you are trying to achieve is  the use of higher standard deduction by this process.

Absent any contravening facts / circumstances and assuming the most tax-beneficial interpretation of my questions above, a few points to note:

1. Generally the tax status of a dependent visa "admitee" is that of the main/ primary  visa holder. Thus your husband's tax status would be that of your status-- Resident for Tax purposes once he is admitted to the USA i.e. his visa is consummated.

2. Based on the above interpretation,there is no need for the request to be treated as a resident. However the request for Tax ID ( ITIN) is required ONLY for  joint filing purposes.

3. To the extent , that you were not married to him ( i.e. prior to marriage recognition by the USA when the H-4 visa was issued ), he was a single Non-Resident Alien with no existence in the US tax rolls.  Thus any  foreign income ( not US sourced income) for his benefit is outside the purview of the US tax system/laws.

4. If you were married by the last day of the year 2022, you would be considered  to be a married person for the whole of 2022.  But since he was a "non-person" till he was admitted to the USA, he would still be a Non-Resident Alien for the year 2022 ( assuming that was admitted to the USA sometime in 2023 ).   However there is a special treaty condition in US-India tax treaty  that does allow an Indian spouse ( a Non-Resident Alien ) to be treated as a dependent without being present in the USA  ( I need to find documentary evidence for this though and it will take a bit of time -- a day or so).

Does this help or confuse the situation ?

Is there more I can do for you ?   In the meantime I will do some digging on the exact wording for a dependent spouse and  the limitations thereof 

And of course welcome to the USofA

Namaste / Namashkar / Namaskaram/ etc.

pk