S2N

Main impact MFS has vs. single is that you get extra taxes on investment income and social security after $125kish. Can’t claim certain credits as well, but that wouldn’t really be applicable in most immigrant situations. Also can have some weird impacts in community property states. You can always go back and amend as needed. But in this case OP’s wife already has an ITIN, so MFJ is the objectively best tax status and none of the annoying bits that come with applying for an ITIN apply to them (processing times are currently around 2 months for an ITIN, fwiw, so 999… isn’t really advisable these days.) @BeefedRamen: something I forgot to mention is that both you and your wife will need to sign a declaration electing to file jointly as an NRA spouse (IRS website with info). You can draft the letter, she can print and wet sign then scan to you and you can do the same. If e-Filing the accountant will upload it with the return so both being wet on the paper that’s sent in shouldn’t be an issue since it’s a scan anyway.

It gets sent to NVC, where your spouse will apply for a visa online using form DS-260, and you’ll fill out the sponsorship form (I-864) among other things. Once they review and determine all the documents are in order, they hold it until a spot opens up to interview in Mumbai, which can take a very long time.

This is not true. By electing to file MFJ any foreign spousal income worldwide must be reported and taxed. Gifts are not income for the recipient; but anything earned overseas from a job, business, or investments is. You still end up paying less in the overwhelming majority of cases because of how tax brackets work, but the U.S. taxes on worldwide income and making the election to treat a foreign spouse as a tax resident under the IRC, you forfeit the ability to use the foreign earned income exclusion. My husband pays more in U.S. taxes than he does in Chilean taxes on paper, but he actually pays nothing in U.S. taxes and I pay $4k less by our decision to treat him as a tax resident that I would if I filed MFS/single.

FBAR usually isn’t applicable to NRA spouses electing to be treated as tax residents from my understanding, but yes, very good point. You want someone who knows this stuff and isn’t giving you their best guess. Edit: ignore me, I’m also replying on the other tax thread active right now and forgot that this was related to someone already in the U.S., for whom FBAR is much more of a concern.

Filing an extension is free and if you owe nothing or are owed a refund there’s none of the penalties you describe apply. Those only apply if you don’t pay any tax due when you apply for the extension. Also the failure to file penalty would never apply to someone who files an extension. The whole point of the extension is to avoid it. If you anticipate owing and you file an extension and pay the amount you owe, you are also not charged any of the interest. An extension is simply an extension of time to file, not time to pay. It hurts nothing requesting one, is free and easy to do, and if they can file by 4/15 it has no impact on anything. If they don’t file by 4/15, it’s on record they plan to file by 10/15. Also it is not a great idea for someone who is doing first year MFJ with a foreign spouse to DIY it. The reason for an extension is it gives OP time to find a CPA and gives the CPA time to prepare.

Yeah; once someones income is solely from one jurisdiction and they don’t have any business income, it really doesn’t make sense to hire someone as any of the free softwares will do the exact same thing as a CPA or HR Block, and you’re more or less paying for data entry at that point. Reason I say people with multi-jurisdiction issues should hire a professional is that it’s really easy to over-claim credits in this area and also really easy to overpay. Neither is great, but overclaiming credits and underpaying is what you really want to avoid. As an example: my husband pays Chilean property taxes. Those aren’t eligible for the credit as foreign taxes since only foreign income tax is deductible and his contributions to the local pension plan aren’t qualified retirement contributions since it’s not a U.S.-plan. Multi-state in the U.S. has a lot of similar issues. Unless someone deals with stuff like that regularly or knows how to research it; there’s a very real risk that the numbers they’re inputting to the software are wrong. I have a a stronger professional background in this than most, and I still prefer someone who specializes in individual income tax do mine since I have multi-state, rental, and now foreign income.

That makes it much easier. You all can e-file so no need for paper. I would still file an extension request now, which you can do for free electronically using your preferred tax software since she has an ITIN (TurboTax, FreeTaxUSA, TaxAct, etc.) If you end up not needing it, it doesn’t hurt, and good to have on record if you do need it. Check state laws to see if you’d need to file an additional one in the state or if it’s automatic with the federal one. My recommendation is still to get a CPA with experience in foreign tax issues to prepare the return rather than DIY it. It’s possible to do on your own but anytime multiple tax jurisdictions are involved it is easy to make mistakes and claim too much or too little. It’ll cost more to prepare the return, but given your fact pattern you’ll probably more than make it up by paying less under the new filing status.

A lot of questions here so I’ll try to answer them all: 1) If you have not already, file an extension (if you go down the joint path, will need to be paper extension since she’s an NRA.) Whatever your decision unlikely to be able to file in the next 12 days since this is probably something you’d want to hire a CPA for. 2) Any evidence of financial commingling is a good thing, but USCIS and the State Department realize that MFJ isn’t always practical for people in this situation. 3) Gifts are never taxable to the recipient; there’s forms you have to file if it’s over a certain amount as a giver, but unless it’s over ~$13M in a lifetime it’s not taxable. These forms go away if you’re MFJ, since you’re just moving cash around between spouses on the same 1040. 4) Biggest downside is you have to paper file the first year before getting an ITIN and send in her passport or a certified copy or do it with a certified acceptance agent. Since she won’t be in the U.S. to physically sign it sounds like, you’d need to get her to sign form 2848 and fax it to the IRS/send you a copy as well that you can both fax and include with the form authorizing you to sign on her behalf. We are filing jointly this year, and will do it when he’s in the U.S. at the end of April. The tax benefits of MFJ when there’s a large income disparity usually make it worth the hassle, but you can always file to amend later.

Yes. You can use FreeTaxUSA to file; then check your IRS account for transcripts in a few days. The last few years were very fast on e-File to transcript conversion (a few days), but the official timeline is 2-3 weeks. If the transcripts don’t appear you can just upload the PDF copy of your 1040 with $1 of interest income as proof of filing. I might also print off the confirmation page from FreeTaxUSA as well. How you prefer to handle this is up to you, but it would take you 30 minutes or less to just file the back year returns declaring $1 of interest and it’s free. If the software asks for a bank name just type in “Declaring to file” or something like that. This is the normal workaround for people with no income who want to file for whatever reason. If you haven’t gotten the interview date yet and the State Department is giving you trouble with multiple requests for your explanation for not filing, I’d just do it today since it’s super quick and easy to do and free, plus you wouldn’t owe anything. Your call, though. My thought process is the path of least resistance is usually to do something that’s easy rather than explain why you’re not required to do it. Even in cases like yours where you’re correct that there’s not a requirement.

One thing to keep in mind if you’re still getting any content from Chile is that in my experience the media down there overplays any risk of losing access to VWP or Chileans getting turned away. The main reason there’s an increase in turning Chileans away is they’ve started enforcing the no-travel-to-Cuba on ESTA policy before ESTA renewal instead of just waiting for it to expire and non-renew. Know that there’s also the type of activity in the NYT story you linked to, but that appears to be fairly targeted to people who are already on their radar for stuff related to academic protests, etc. which is still scary and a bad thing in my opinion, but also doesn’t impact most people crossing.

Hire a CPA. US taxes aren’t nearly as complex as people make them out to be, but the second you throw multi-jurisdictional taxes into it (whether it’s foreign or multi-state), that’s when it starts to make sense to hire a professional. Would not recommend HR Block or any of the retail tax prep stores. Those are essentially data entry people and they cost similar to what a licensed CPA would charge. Since it’s Canada you can likely find someone very experienced with these issues fairly easily, especially in areas near the border. Your CPA doesn’t have to live in the same state as you to do your taxes.

The other option is to file a $0 return via paper for back years or file a return reporting $1 of interest income to e-file. I’d do $1 of interest to efile, but either works if you want to file. Yes, I know it’s not required, but it’s free, there’s no harm in it, and if you e-file the transcripts will process very quickly so you can upload them as proof of filing. My opinion is that there’s really not a good reason not to file a tax return even if it’s just a return saying you had no income. Prevents others from using your SSN to file a return (it happens), if there’s a stimulus/other government benefit, it’s easier to get usually if you’ve filed a return, and in this case, easier to show the Department of State that you filed a return than explain to them why you don’t need to. Again, not required, but seems to be the easiest solution here.

I forget exactly where it was in the online form (they don’t let you go back and look at anything but the PDF version once you submit), but it was either that screen or near there. They gave a paragraph about needing to upload proof of marriage and the drop down contains multiple options for categorizing files including birth certificates and marriage certificates if I recall. Most of the stuff we uploaded was classified as “other.” They also read through everything uploaded and you can submit after as unsolicited evidence.

You upload as other evidence in the evidence of bona fides of marriage section.

Fraud is a strong word; @pushbrk is more or less correct except in the very specific circumstances I mentioned. The IRS will not go after you for intentionally filing in a less advantageous status than you could and paying more tax than you’ll eventually owe. The two asterisks are people living in community property states and people making $125k+ not counting their spouse. In both of those cases, you’re probably underpaying by reporting as single instead of MFS (though that can be amended to MFJ after they arrive so likely wouldn’t matter.)