About to give up on filing joint taxes with foreign spouse...

[Love To Teach 161]

Hi all--I had the intent of filing jointly with my Pakistani spouse. However, I am finding out it is lots more complicated than I thought. Evidently, because he is self-employed, he will have to pay social security taxes, etc. here on his income. And he has income in two different countries with 2 different businesses. His tax papers from Serbia are a joke, while the ones in Pak are not quite so hard to understand. I have an accountant (whom I have not met yet) willing to deal with this, but was waiting for my husband to get all of his papers together. Anyway, I am about at the point of just filing separately and dealing with it when he gets here, maybe filing amendments for however many years it takes for him to get here.

I also wonder if by the time he pays social security taxes and all that, plus the accountant fees, if it will be worth the trouble and expense. If I do go ahead and just file separately, can I do it on Turbotax? How do I get past the social security number for him?

Thanks for the advice!

[samford 1]

If your husband does not hold residency status yet, then you you will likely not be able to file jointly anyway. We went through a similar situation just last week and the accountant did the math on both just to show that would have been worse off if we were able to file jointly.

The following is directly from the IRS (link is below):

"Nonresident alien or dual-status alien. Generally, a married couple cannot file a joint return if either one is a nonresident alien at any time during the tax year. However, if one spouse was a nonresident alien or dual-status alien who was married to a U.S. citizen or resident alien at the end of the year, the spouses can choose to file a joint return. If you do file a joint return, you and your spouse are both treated as U.S. residents for the entire tax year. See chapter 1 of Pub. 519."

https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch02.html#en_US_2015_publink1000170736

[rutabaga 209]

If you need any help identifying stuff on the Serbian tax paper just shoot me a message and I'll help if I can.

As for the SSN, someone with more info will surely come along, but I believe there's no way really to efile through Turbotax if he doesn't have an SSN or ITIN and you'd essentially have to file a paper return and write in NRA in the SSN field, but do look into that more, this may be stale information.

P.S. Since they're married they can definitely file jointly, but that is not to say that it is necessarily beneficial for them to file jointly (i.e., the bigger deduction may not offset either an increased tax liability since the NR spouse has to report all his income as well that way or, in this case, the increased complexity of the return). That's just something that everyone has to work out for themselves.

Edited March 11, 2016 by rutabaga

[rutabaga 209]

If your husband does not hold residency status yet, then you you will likely not be able to file jointly anyway. We went through a similar situation just last week and the accountant did the math on both just to show that would have been worse off if we were able to file jointly.

The following is directly from the IRS (link is below):

"Nonresident alien or dual-status alien. Generally, a married couple cannot file a joint return if either one is a nonresident alien at any time during the tax year. However, if one spouse was a nonresident alien or dual-status alien who was married to a U.S. citizen or resident alien at the end of the year, the spouses can choose to file a joint return. If you do file a joint return, you and your spouse are both treated as U.S. residents for the entire tax year. See chapter 1 of Pub. 519."

https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch02.html#en_US_2015_publink1000170736

So what that quote is trying to say, admittedly somewhat convolutedly, is that two persons filing a joint return cannot have differing residency statuses (for tax purposes), i.e., if you are a resident, you cannot file a joint return with your spouse AND treat them as a non-resident or dual status resident (for tax purposes) at the same time; instead, you must treat them as a resident for the duration of the whole year in order to file a joint return.

I emphasize for tax purposes here since residency for tax purposes is different than residency for immigration purposes and even non-resident aliens (like students on F1 visas for example) may file as residents for tax purposes under certain conditions.

Edited March 11, 2016 by rutabaga

[Love To Teach 161]

Hi rutabaga---Yes, we were going to file jointly, and he has already sent me a signed W-7, which I would attach to our tax papers. I am just thinking now that this is just too complicated with social security tax due, etc., since he is self-employed. I thought I had read somewhere that there was a way to use turbotax online. I just can't remember how they got it to go through the computer for the social security number. But thanks for the info!!

I see you are from Serbia. He lived there for 2 years, but they refused his last application to renew his visa because we couldn't put enough money into our bank account...hmmmm It all worked out for the best anyway since all the migrant mess that is going on there now. But we met some very nice people there. In fact, his business partner lives there in Uzice.

Edited March 11, 2016 by Love To Teach

[rutabaga 209]

I'm hesitant to offer any more advice as it gets rally complex in these situations and each situation is more or less unique, but what I can tell you is that if you do chose Turbotax, compare the prices of the online edition you'd need and the downloadable edition (both would need to support working on Schedule SE from what I can see here, but again, please do check it out yourself) and the downloadable one may end up being cheaper especially since you'll probably have to work on two versions of your returns anyway unless you want to work on your state return(s) manually as most states don't allow you to treat your NR spouse as a resident for tax purposes (do check that for your state as well) and even though you can file the federal return MFJ, you may need to file your state return MFS.

On a more personal note: if you feel it's too complicated then just file MFS and forget about it if you don't absolutely need that extra cash (work our a rough estimate on what the difference in your refund would be for MFJ and MFS) -- the only reason we'll be going with MFJ this year is that my income was fairly simply structured (compared to your husband's) so it's not a big bother to deal with it compared to the extra money we get back.

P.S. Yeah, Serbia is not all that bad But our tax system can be awful... just don't get me started on that And again -- if you need any help figuring out the Serbian paperwork, just let me know.

Edited March 11, 2016 by rutabaga

[Cathi 5,747]

If your husband does not hold residency status yet, then you you will likely not be able to file jointly anyway. We went through a similar situation just last week and the accountant did the math on both just to show that would have been worse off if we were able to file jointly.

The following is directly from the IRS (link is below):

"Nonresident alien or dual-status alien. Generally, a married couple cannot file a joint return if either one is a nonresident alien at any time during the tax year. However, if one spouse was a nonresident alien or dual-status alien who was married to a U.S. citizen or resident alien at the end of the year, the spouses can choose to file a joint return. If you do file a joint return, you and your spouse are both treated as U.S. residents for the entire tax year. See chapter 1 of Pub. 519."

https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch02.html#en_US_2015_publink1000170736

wrong, I did it with my husband before he got his visa. I had to report his foreign income

[samford 1]

Awwww.... I think someone beat you too it