How to file a married filing joint tax return if one spouse was not in the US for entire year of 2018 while the other spouse was in the US for entire year of 2018?

[cbhamber85]

I found out that if one spouse is non resident for the year you can still treat him/her resident for the purpose of filing tax return. But how do I tell your software that one spouse was not a resident and we r treating him as a resident. I understand that any foreign income earned will be reported. My question is do I need to specify that one spouse was not in the US for 2018 but we are choosing to treat him as.if he is a resident. Both spouses have green cards. 

[LinaJ2018 · Accepted solution]

No, you do not need to specify that information in the program.  

First of all, if both spouses have green cards, you both are residents.  Your spouse is considered as a resident even though he or she does not reside in the US.  You do not need to file a special statement or election to treat that person as a resident.   In the TurboTax program, you do not need to indicate spouse was not present in the US for the year.