Filing as a US resident living overseas with a non-resident alien spouse

[rtoddphillips]

I have a tax issue that I have been concerned about for the last couple of years regarding the address I use for my husband and I on our tax return. As a bit of background, I’ve been filing MFJ with my husband ever since we got married in 2013. My husband was an undocumented alien living in the US. Once we got married we began his immigration process. The last step was to come down to Mexico to get his visa. We came down in 2018 and to our great shock he was denied a visa and given a 10-year bar.

I quickly rented out 2 of the 3 rooms in our home in California and came down to Mexico to take our next step on this wild journey of life. I kept a room in our house in CA for myself so that I could travel back and forth. When filing our 2018 taxes using Turbotax I filed a 6013G to treat my non-resident alien spouse as a resident for tax purposes, and filed our taxes as normal, listing our home in California as our address. I filed similarly in 2019.

This year as I’m filling out our taxes for 2020, I’m suddenly wondering if I should be doing this differently. I still maintain an address in CA, but I spend most of my time here in Mexico, and this has been especially true during the pandemic.

So far it’s been simpler to keep everything just like it was before my husbands visa denial, but I’m wondering if I should do this differently now. This year I was thinking of putting our Mexico address as my husband address, and using our CA address for myself, but I can’t seem to do this with Turbotax. How can I do this?

Also do I need to update my taxes from 2018 and 2019 using our Mexico address since that’s where we both were for most of those years? Thank you!

[JeffreyR77]

The address on your tax returns is the address you want the IRS to use if they have communication that needs to reach you. 

You do not need to amend your tax returns to change an address.  There simply is no purpose to that. 

For state tax purposes, California will consider where your domicile is. 

Domicile is defined best as where you consider your permanent home to be, where you would or will return to as a permanent home. 

Tests of domicile include where you own a home, have a drivers license, register cars, and register to vote. 

Unless and until you take active steps to break your domicile with California and establish it with another  state, California will consider you a resident for tax purposes regardless of any address on your tax return. 

The address on your return is just that: an address for someone to send you mail and you to receive it. 

TurboTax simply requires customers have a US address to charge their payment to prior to efile.