Exclude one spouses foreign earned income

[Eli_R]

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.

[pk]

@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 ?

[Eli_R]

Looking to maximize returns here...

Both spouses are Us persons curently living and working abroad.

would it be possible to file each spouse separetely and claim child tax credit only on the spouse who's income will not be excluded?

[DaveF1006 · Accepted solution]

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.