Exclude one spouses foreign earned income

Forum|Forum|4 months ago
March 28, 2026
3 replies
78 views

Both myself and my spouse lived abroad for the entire 2005 tax year. Is it possible to exclude only my spouse's income?
The program lets me select who's income to exclude mine, his, both or neither, but when selecting only his, mine gets excluded as well.

Best answer by DaveF1006

No, you generally cannot have one spouse exclude income via the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE) while the other spouse claims the refundable Child Tax Credit for the same household. Please read this link for a detailed analysis of this subject.

pk_

Level 15

@Eli_R . assuming that you are both US persons ( citizen/GreenCard ) , Foreign Tax-home, have foreign earned / self-employment income and filing MFJ, it would be difficult to have one filer use FEIE and the other use FTC. How do you then distribute all the deductions/ credits etc. between the two essentially independent streams -- I say this because there are credits and deductions that are not available when income is excluded. There is nothing in the way when one spouse is US based with a W-2 / 1099-NEC and the other spouse is Foreign with FEIE or both spouse use FEIE or FTC.

Suggest you use MFS and thereby be able to use FTC and/ or FEIE per your individual pref./ need.

Does this make sense ?

Is there more I can do for you ?