Question

I am married but my spouse has no SSN. She lives outside the US. She does have an income but not US-sourced. What should I file as? Thank you.

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
July 10, 2020
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TurboTax Deluxe Online

Employee

If you are a US citizen or US resident and your spouse does not have a Social Security number or an ITIN and you are not applying for an ITIN with the tax return then you can only file your tax return as Married Filing Separately. Where asked to enter the spouse's Social Security number enter 999-88-9999. You can only print and mail your tax return, it cannot be e-filed. When you print the tax return erase the Social Security number for your spouse and manually enter NRA for non-resident alien.

See this TurboTax support FAQ for the procedure to print and mail a tax return using the online editions - https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1944348-how-do-i-print-and-mail-my-return-in-turbotax-online

O

Opus 17

Employee

You are also allowed to file as married filing jointly with your spouse, but this requires treating your spouse as a US resident for tax purposes, which means that you must report all her worldwide income and pay tax on it. You would get a deduction or credit for foreign taxes paid, and married filing jointly has better deductions and lower tax rates then married filing separately, but you would have to test both scenarios to see which is better for you.

To file jointly, you would again use a fake tax number in the interview, print the return, and cover the fake number with white out. You would also prepare a form W7 application for an ITIN. Mail the W7, any required proofs of identity, and the tax return, all to the IRS. After they issue the ITIN, they will process the tax return.