ITIN for spouse

Dear All,

Last year I backfiled and posted here with basic questions and responses were very helpful. Last year, however, I also got married and with that joy comes new complications in filing my taxes. JUST when I got the hang of it!

So, now that my husband and I are filing jointly, does he need an ITIN? I've read somewhere that this is only if he is listed as a dependent which I could choose not list him as our income is more than covered by the foreign income exclusion.

Hope that makes sense, following on... if he does need an ITIN (either because it is recommended that he be listed as a dependent or its best practice) do I mark anything in the SSN box for him... like, awaiting ITIN?

If we apply for his ITIN we will be sending in his W7 with the 1040 though they seem to discourage sending your passport which my husband would need to do. Notaries are a little expensive so I'd rather we did it in person if possible. The instructions are vague in saying that the US embassy or IRS office may be able to help, as in confirm identity and passport but can't process the actual ITIN.  How have you all gone about this?

Finally, we each file seperate 2555-EZs, right?

Gah, thanks again in advance for your help!

You do not need to file together with your spouse. You only need an ITIN if you want to file as married filing jointly or to claim your spouse as a dependant.

The reasons to do this are as follows:
1) to claim a double Foreign Earned Income exclusion
2) to increase your income on order to claim or increase various refundable credits (additional child tax credits, making work pay etc)

We are Certifying Acceptance agents, which means we can process the W7 and you wouldn't need to send your passport to the IRS (although we would need to see it).

If you and your husband both elect to file jointly he would need an ITIN.  This is unusual.  Most folks reading this forum simply write "NRA" in the box for spouse's SSN.  You file separately and this does the trick.

There might be various reasons for obtaining ITIN and filing jointly. You need to take into consideration, though,  that once you make the choice to treat your spouse as U.S. resident for tax purposes, you enclose your written note to the IRS with your W-7 where you explicitly make this statement. Later, this option can be changed only by the IRS permission. So, you have no freedom of calculating what works better for you in the specific year and change your option for that year. You can find more details and examples at http://www.taxesforexpats.com/expat-tax-advice/foreign-spouse.html

Writing 'NRA' in lieu of the Social Security number is a simple solution if you do not plan to apply for a green card for your spouse in the future. The only drawback, you cannot file electronically in this case.

Thanks for the helpful responses. I do plan eventually to move back to the states in the next few years, with my husband. In this case is it advisable to file jointly?

If so, has anyone approached the US embassy in London for their ITIN?

I was also under the impression that taxes could not be e-filed from abroad. Is there a site that allows you to do that?

And finally, last year I posted my 1040 and 2555EZs to the embassy, but I have read on the forums that people are posting them to Austin, TX. Is this a new thing, should I be posting my taxes there?


Thanks everyone!

My DH got his ITIN at the embassy in London. He gets some income from US sources and in order to take advantage of the US/UK tax treaty he had to provide an ITIN number. If he weren't getting income from the US we wouldn't have bothered. I remember filling out his W-7 form and everything was very very complicated. The W-7 form was complicated, the embassy website was complicated, and even when I rang up I could never speak to anyone or get additional info. But there are various guides online which helped us, and although DH was really intimidated by the scary US embassy they were helpful and accepted his already completed W-7 and made copies of his ID and sent it all off. It ended up being a lot simpler than we'd been anticipating.

Although your husband can get an ITIN as the spouse or dependent of a US citizen, we got the impression that they only want to issue you an ITIN if you're not going to be getting a SSN. So as long as your husband doesn't need to file now, if you do end up moving back to the US I think he'd probably go for a SSN rather than an ITIN.

Thanks for the response. My husband went today to file his W7, obviously they needed the 1040 which he didn't have but they checked the form and notarised his passport for him, so I think we are going to file with that and see what happens!