US Taxes- Spouse without a Social Security Number

Hello,

I am hoping someone can help me with a tax question! It's a bit complicated to explain but I will do my best and hopefully someone can help!

I moved to the UK on a Fiance visa in June 2019. I did not have a job in the UK anytime during 2019, but I did work in the US for a couple months before I came here. So I need to file my 2019 taxes for the work I did in the states before coming to the UK. It should be simple and each year I do my own taxes on a website called Taxhawk, it asks general questions and you fill in all your information and it calculates your return for you. However, I did get married here in England in August 2019 to a UK citizen. So I now need to file as married and we decided to do married filing separately. When I went to complete my taxes on Tawhawk, it wanted information about my spouse, including a SSN. Since he is a UK resident, he does not have a social security number. However, the software wouldn't let me continue unless I entered the information, so I can no longer use Taxhawk. We looked into hiring someone here but it is really expensive for something that we should be able to do easily, since I only have income from work in the states. Has anybody filed US taxes with a spouse without a SSN? I have read something about an ITIN number, would he need to get one of those? Maybe a different program would be better or a paper return? Any thoughts or advice would be helpful!

Thank you!

Hi there,
I think you can still file it on paper and post it back?
I moved to the UK from Chicago in 2007 to be married to my husband (UK Citizen). He's never had a SSN so I have always been "married filing separately". However my accountant (in the US) did say I cannot do e-file due to him not having SSN. So he has always prepared mine on paper and I will sign and post it back to IRS. Saying all this I have not been working or earning enough to exceed the threshold for filing for the past few years after Maternity Leave in 2012.
Sorry cannot be of more help!

Filing MFJ with an ITIN maybe beneficial if the $24k plus deduction works for you. Otherwise I know that TaxAct has a box saying something like my souse is an NRA and has no SSN/ITIN. No need to file with paper then.

Thank you both that is helpful!

I did figure out yesterday I could use TurboTax to fill out the form and then would have to mail a paper copy and write in that my spouse is a nonresident alien. Although when I was using the program, I was able to ask an accountant for help and they said my husband would have to apply for an ITIN. Which would require him to mail personal documents (passport, etc) to the IRS. Which doesn’t seem like a great idea right now!

Has your husband had to get an ITIN or do you always write nonresident alien in place of a SSN?

I've not used Turbo Tax, so can't comment. If you use TaxAct, the you can do the whole return electronically. Yes, did get an ITIN while Stateside though with a CAA which is easy, (W-7 COA). There are CAA's in the U.K, check the U.S. Embassy website and there is a list, perhaps some virtual authentication during these times maybe permissible. Good luck.

I was the first IRS Certifying Acceptance Agent in the UK way back in the year 2000 and continue to successfully help with ITINs throughout the current lockdown.  However in the circumstances described an ITIN is not required. Page 13 of the official 1040 IRS instructions specify what the IRS accepts.

Thank You guya! That was really helpful!