Help

Ok. Hi. I’m in the situation that lots of expats are in: I have no US phone number. No US credit/debit/bank cards. And oh an NRA spouse to boot.

I was on maternity leave last year for most of the year and had very very little income.

Who will let me free file? All seem to want a US mobile number. Or US address or US bank card (I do have a Wise account though, not that I’ve used it much with the pandemic and not travelling and all…).

Thoughts? Recommendations?


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I used TaxAct and bought a skype number for 1 month. It cost around £5 but my family could all use the same number to sign up so it was definitely worth it. I just cancelled it straight after. Not ideal but an easy workaround.

Edit: Just realised you had an NRA spouse. I did not so i don't know if TaxAct supports filing NRA. I think i've read other people haven't been able to use TaxAct for this very reason. Sorry...

I've used Tax Act (full version paid for) -  for the last 2 years - all without a US address or phone number.

What I did was use what is known as a white address (when paying by credit card) as the work around on paying by UK credit worked  for me using a white address (the TaxAct city, state & zip code, but your actual UK street address). I was charged so, no issues from Tax ACT.

For  a phone number I enter my UK mobile number without the leading 44 or 0 - this actually creates a legitimate number from my perspective but clearly one that doesn't work in the US - (for me area code 791 does not exist!) Tax Act will attempt to send a validation code as a text, but they also send the same code via email - use that and you're in!

Good Luck