Dual status - Green Card

[sheetal_ak]

We have a couple of questions for filing taxes for My mother.

Situation :
My mother arrived in the US on 1st September 2019 on an immigrant visa (her permanent residency petition was approved abroad and she came to US on 1st Sep 2019).
She meets the green card test for 2019 but doesn't meet the substantial presence test (including the days she was in the US on a B2 visa in 2018 (53) and 2017 (181)).

For 2019, I am assuming she is a dual status taxpayer with her residency start date being 1st Sep 2019.
Her overall income earned overseas for the entire year is about $15000 (including rental/interest income from non US connected sources).
For the period from 1st September 2019-Dec 31st 2019 her income was less than $4000.

She is above 65 yrs and based on the fact that she is a dual status taxpayer I am assuming she would need to file a 1040-SR (Sep-Dec 2019) and 1040-NR (Jan-Aug 2019).

Given the following -

• Her entire income for 2019 was derived from non US connected sources (so I am assuming nothing needs to be reported on 1040 NR)
• She is a senior citizen (above 65 yrs) and her income for the residency period in 2019 is only around $4000 (a lot less than the $13,500 annual income limit required for a senior citizen to file)

Question:
1) Do we still need to file a tax return (1040 SR) and also any FBAR/FATCA to disclose any offshore accounts/assets?
2) How can we file dual status taxes in turbo tax?

Note: I am not claiming her as a dependent on my 1040.

[SusanY1 · Accepted solution]

TurboTax doesn't prepare the dual status return, but your assessment is correct of her status and the dates for which you should file 1040NR.   We recommend SprinTax.com for this.

I would recommend going ahead and filing the 1040 for this year, despite the fact that your mother will have $0 income, just to coordinate with the 1040NR and fully explain the dual status nature of her filing. 

FBAR/FACTA - always err on the side of caution here and file if there is any question about the need to do so.  There is no tax associated with this, but penalties for not filing if you should have are steep.  You can file those quickly here: Foreign Bank Account Reports filing