My husband is not a US citizen, never worked in the US and has never been subject to invome tax, hence he doesnt have SSN. However SSN input is required, how to proceed?

[KarenJ]

Did you want to try filing married filing jointly?  Is he in the US?  What is his visa status?  It would be easier to answer your question if I knew if he was a nonresident or a resident alien.  Thank you.

[dkxhchen]

Thank you for your reply. My husband is not in the US (nonresident alien), in fact he has no employment, taxation etc. relationship whatsoever to the US. I am in fact a foreign citizen myself, was employed in the US on a work visa and have returned to my home contry end of last year. Now I am not employed in the US anymore. So I think my husband is irrelevant to my US taxes, and he obviously does not have a SSN or tax number.

[KarenJ · Accepted solution]

If you were considered a US resident alien in 2019 and returned to your home country prior to December 31, 2019, you can file a 2019 full year resident US return (1040).  You will need to include your worldwide income for the entire calendar year of 2019.  If you earned any income outside the US after you returned home but before December 31, you will need to include this on your US return.  Then if you had any foreign tax paid or accrued on this foreign (non-US) income, you can utilize foreign tax credit on your US return to offset double taxation.

As you will be filing a married filing separately return, you will need to input a "dummy" SSN as 999-88-9999.  You can only print and mail your tax return, it cannot be e-filed.  When you print the tax return "white out " the "Social Security number" for your spouse and manually enter "NRA" for non-resident alien over the area for his SSN.

Publication 519 US Tax Guide for Aliens

[Edited 03.18.20 | 3:46 pm]