Question

Filing jointly: I’m a U.S. citizen, my wife is a NR alien. Can we e-file, or do we need to mail it in with a signed stat. electing to treat her as a res. for tax purp.?

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
April 2, 2025
2 replies
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We’re filing jointly as a married couple for the first time. I’m a U.S. citizen and my wife is a non-resident alien. I understand that we need to include a statement electing to treat her as a resident for tax purposes in order to file jointly. My question is: can we still e-file in this case, or does this require a paper submission? Also, does TurboTax generate that election statement automatically, or would we need to print and sign it separately before submitting?

K

KeshaH

The return can be filed electronically unless your wife doesn't have a taxpayer ID. If she doesn't have an ITIN or SSN, she will need to apply for one. You'll need to print and mail your return along with the TIN application. To prepare the return in TurboTax, you can use a placeholder TIN. After printing, delete the TIN before mailing.

P

pk12_2

Employee

@naida_softic ,

(a) is your spouse living with you or is she in her home country ? If so which country ?

(b) does she have a tax id ( ITIN ) -- whether she is living here in the USA or not ?

While your answer to my questions may modulate my answers a bit , but in general :

1. She needs a tax id to be able to file with you ( ITIN request W-7 )

2. For MFJ ( and thereby get the full standard deduction at least ), her world income must come under US tax.

3. If she is abroad and has income, her income may be excluded under Foreign Earned Income Exclusion

But all of the above would need you to file by mail.

I will circle back once I hear from you