Can temporary ITINs be used in place of a Social Security number that has yet to come? I live in NY and filed for a tax extension that was met with a Temp ITIN.

Forum|Forum|10 months ago
May 10, 2025
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I married my wife whom is not an American but has filed the paperwork to become one by marrying me. We are at the stage of the process where we are waiting to hear back about an interview date. We married last year so filing taxes through TurboTax has been a challenge, basically impossible. Anyway, we received a temporary ITIN from New York but nothing from the Federal. The temporary ITIN begins with TF and is followed by 7 numbers, which comes up as invalid whenever I try to enter it into TurboTax. Please help.

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pk12_2

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@tukus-raides , I am most confused as to what you are talking about. As I understand the TF number is issued by NY for entities that do business in NY but do not have an EIN yet. This temporary tax ID is used till the entity is granted an EINB by the IRS.

From / based-on your post:

(a) You a US person ( citizen/GreenCard/Resident for Tax purposes ) married an NRA ( Non-Resident Alien ) during 2024.

(b) The spouse does not have an ITIN / SSN yet.

(c) You said " I married my wife whom is not an American but has filed the paperwork to become one by marrying me. We are at the stage of the process where we are waiting to hear back about an interview date."

I am assuming that here you are talking about your effort in getting Immigration Services to issue the proper visa , work permit etc. based on your marriage. This has nothing to do with ITIN ( a Tax ID issued by the IRS and only for tax account purposes)

(d) Is your spouse in this country, living with you or is she still abroad and waiting for visa to enter the country ?

(e) If you wish to file a joint return (Married Filing Joint) for the tax year 2024 and noting that she has NO tax ID, you will have to file MFJ and include the application for an ITIN ( form W-7) and its documents .

I am not including this process here because I am not familiar withe screens for the on-line product and because this topic has been covered multiple times. Essentially what you have to do is prepare the MFJ return using a dummy SSN, you need to file by mail ( after replacing the dummy SSN with "N R A ") and including W-7 ( application for ITIN) and all the documentation it requires ( you may be able to use copies , by taking the original and copies to the local IRS office and having them certify the copies as "True" ). This will generally allow IRS to issue ITIN retroactively and process your return.

(f) If you are uncomfortable going through all this by yourself, it may be advisable to see the services of a tax professional ( one familiar with ITIN process ).

(g) The TF number is useless for individual return and so I am not sure I understand why you got that for your spouse .

Is there more I can do for you ?