Why does my Italian wife need an ss or itin? She has never lived or worked in the US, we live in Germany. I'm American, declaring a small amount of freelance income.

[Opus 17 · Accepted solution]

If you file as married filing jointly, you must treat her as a US resident for tax purposes and report and pay US tax in all her world-wide income.  

If you file as married filing separately, you don’t need her tax number and you don’t include her income, but you can’t e-file.  Print your return, write “NRA” in the space for her tax number (non-resident alien) and mail your return.  You may need to use a fake SSN to bypass the error check.  Try 999-88-9999 and then use some white-out to cover it on the printed return.  

Filing by mail is also the only way to obtain the 2 month extension for overseas taxpayers unless you already requested the 6 month extension online.  

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/us-citizens-and-resident-aliens-abroad-autom...