IRS procedures mind-bogglingly confusing...

...not that that's exactly news to anyone, but, I'm wondering if somebody can help me make sense of things.

For the last several years I have prepared and e-filed my tax return online. Last night I set out to do the same thing for my 2005 return, but am a bit stumped as to how to do that.

I moved to the UK in November of 2005, and was married to my UK citizen and resident spouse in December of 2005. What I understand reading other posts here is that I have to file as "Married Filing Separately" and put "NRA" in the spouse's SSN blank.

(Incidentally, one question: which IRS publication instructs this? I can't find anything on IRS.gov that actually states what to do if your spouse doesn't have and has no need to have a SSN or ITIN, has no US income, no ties to the US whatsoever, and has never lived in the US. Just wondering what the source of this info is and where I can verify it.)

OK...so anybody know of an online tax prep. service that will allow me to enter that into their form? I have tried the one I usually use and a couple more. Two of them wouldn't allow me to enter a non-US address, and all three require the "Spouse's SSN" blank to be filled in a "xxx-xx-xxxx" format and spit it out if you enter anything else in the field.

I'm due a refund, so I want to e-file and get the money deposited into my US bank account as quickly as possible. I have no UK income for 2005 at all, but worked in the US almost all of 2005. My tax return is almost identical to past years except I've moved and I'm married now.

Does anybody here e-file? How do you do it if you have a non-resident alien spouse? Is there any known online tax service that allows for this situation? The IRS website is not helpful (surprising but true). They've got a list of services that allow one to e-file for free, but there does not appear to be any method except paper through snail-mail anymore of filing directly without going through a tax preparer.  

I'd rather not mail the return in since getting my refund will take ages. Would have waited until January to get married if I had known it would be such a pain.

I don't e-file, so I don't know about filling in the boxes, but if you file married filing separately, you don't have to report your spouse's income on your tax return anyway, regardless of where your spouse is from. You aren't instructed to file that way, because you could file married filing jointly if you wanted , but then you would have to get your spouse a TIN and include his UK income, which probably doesn't make financial sense for most of the people here. So US expats are generally advised on this board to file seprately, but you don't have to.

The programme I use has several non-SSN codes that then print the correct response:  666-66-6666 prints "applied for", "999-99-9999" prints "NRA".  Perhaps this feature is available on yours?   If your programme doesn't do something similar, why not PRINT it out and send your paper return by post?  You can send it to the IRS at the US Embassy in London.  It will delay your refund by three weeks - so what?  That's cheaper in lost interest on the funds than the cost of a second tax prep programme purchase will be.

sweetpeach: I know I don't have to report my spouse's income, but I still have to enter something in the blank for spouse's Social Security number to file as married filing separately. Nowhere does this situation seem to be covered on the IRS.gov website. They don't seem to allow for the possibility of someone being married to an individual who has no ties to the US whatsoever, and so don't tell you what to do in that case.

Lizzit: I don't ever buy tax preparation software. It has never seemed worth the cost since my returns aren't that complicated and I can prepare a return for free and e-file it for a very small fee online. There are dozens of online tax preparation sites, but for the last several years I've been using taxact.com specifically. I don't want to have to mail the return because it will take a lot longer to get my refund, but since no e-filing service I can find seems to be up to the task of dealing with international marriages I might have to mail it because I have no other choice. What software are you using, out of curiosity?

My husband did my taxes for me..he is English....he/we... filed married but filing seperate for me..in the space for his SSN he put NRA
Non Resident Alien......and that have accepted that.........

I hope this answers your question


But we didn't file online he printed the paper work off and we sent it into London........

I think you need to get an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN).  The form for this is the W-7 and it is available on the IRS website.

My understanding is that an ITIN is not required, all you need to do is put "NRA" in box for his SSN.  You can handwrite it on there and mail the return.

You may find that your return is more complicated than normal if you worked or had any UK income after you moved here, are deducting moving expenses for moving here or charitable contributions for donations of stuff to Goodwill etc when you left.  The right answer is of course to get the best refund as against rushing!  The majority of Americans in the UK file their US tax returns around July/August each year, much ... much later than April 15.

Thanks everybody who has offered information. Here's what I've been able to work out so far:

The IRS will not allow a person with a "Non-resident Alien" spouse to e-file if said spouse doesn't have an ITIN. You can only enter "NRA" on a paper return. So, in effect, they are going to waste paper, postage, and keep my money for a couple more interest-free months just because I married a UK citizen and decided to leave. There is no reason whatsoever for my husband to have to apply for a US tax number of any sort, even though the IRS would obviously prefer it that way, and he will not be doing so, but apparently that prevents me from being able to e-file (which is absurd since you'd expect that technology would be most useful for people outside the US filing tax returns, but logic is certainly not the strong-suit of those people).

OK...off to kill some trees for the IRS now. Grrrrr...   

my british hubby had still does a ssn, but let me tell you they literally made him jump through hoops to prove himself as that number. apparently as it was a new number we had to wait several weeks before it would appear on the system. they never told us that subsequently, and we were rudely surprised when our tax refund check never came after weeks and weeks of waiting only to find out we had to refile them as the irs had considered it void!?
it was the most inconvenient time as well as we had already allocated the money and were leaving on a trip  back to the uk in days.... that was soooo annoying!!!!!!