There are three ways for a person with a nonresident spouse to file (discussed in this TurboTax Help article). Based on what you wrote, “Married Filing Separately” is jumping out at me as the way to go here. But that’s only because you didn’t mention kids or other relatives who might enable you to claim “Head of Household” status (here’s the IRS on that), which has a better tax rate and other possible benefits.
[RalphH1 added this later: dzmitry6, thanks for calling my attention to the problem with that IRS link (I won’t be using it again). Although it correctly says “Citizens and Residents” in the title (and is otherwise useful), the first sentence does imply that residents can’t be Head-of-Household unless they’re citizens, which definitely isn’t the case. Once you meet the “substantial presence test” to be considered a resident (as you apparently did in 2022 by being here all year), you have the same tax obligations and benefits as U.S. citizens (and “can use the same filing statuses available to U.S. citizens,” according to that same Internal Revenue Service in this link…). Sorry for the confusion, dzmitry6!]
It’s also because of your apparent concern with the logistics of filing jointly (which is completely understandable). As you’ve noticed, you can’t just put a equal-digit Social Security number in for your wife (that’s not a TurboTax thing, though — Intuit is just keeping you from filing a return the IRS would reject).
You must apply for an ITIN number for her (as described here) in order to include her, and that does involve mailing the return in (with Form W-7 and other documentation, plus an election to treat your non-resident spouse as a resident), and a significantly longer time frame for processing it all. And then you have the question of how to pay, although there are some ways to deal with that separately from the return filing process (see here).
@dzmitry6, I’m sort of assuming that a joint return gives you a much better result than a separate one, and that’s why you want to do it that way. (Keep in mind that all your wife’s worldwide income would be reportable on a joint return though.) If you’ve tested the different scenarios (in the program) and that’s the case, then you just have to decide if the inconveniences of filing jointly are worth the monetary savings. (Unless, of course, there are youngsters in the picture, in which case maybe they save the day, and you’re head of household!)
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