Posted on 04/01/2019 3:25:57 AM PDT by Oshkalaboomboom
My wife is a British citizen who lived with me for 10 years in the USA before we moved to Spain 3 years ago. She had a green card but since she hasn't been back it is no longer valid. She doesn't care about that and neither do I. But what about the IRS? Since she isn't an American citizen and doesn't live in America do I still have to list her when I file my taxes? She does have a social security number but she never worked when she was in America, it was just for tax purposes.
The benefit is married filing joint status to get the higher standard deduction and better tax rates.
If, at the end of your tax year, you are married and one spouse is a U.S. citizen or a resident alien and the other is a nonresident alien, you can choose to treat the nonresident as a U.S. resident. This includes situations in which one of you is a nonresident alien at the beginning of the tax year, but a resident alien at the end of the year, and the other is a nonresident alien at the end of the year.
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/nonresident-alien-spouse
The reference is to the IRS citation.
Although I’m retired, I’m a CPA.
I have no income. I am living off of savings, paying myself from my IRA until I get to age 67 and collect SS. Even if they count what I withdraw as income it's so little it doesn't really matter what my filing status is, I'm not going to owe anything and I'm not going to get a refund. My wife gets a pension from when she worked in England but she isn't American.
Call the IRS, you can always trust their advice. S/Off
Why file at all? If your income is under 12,000 a year for single, double for joint, and under 65 you don’t have to do so. It’s higher after 65.
I do want them to know I still exist. I still have 3 years before I want to file for SS so absentee voting and filing taxes are the only ways I know to let them know I'm still alive.
You might want to let them know you are both still alive. Come social security time she may qualify for survivor benefits from your earnings. Did she ever earn money in the US? She may be able to get Medicare when the time comes.
I am not a CPA nor have I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express.
It seems silly to me that you want to make sure that the USA government knows all about your personal affairs, banking matters and personal matters. That was the reason why the fourth amendment was drafted. To keep your personal issues personal.
But, that’s just me and I am terribly old fashioned. Like, 1776 old fashioned.
If you want to play it safe, just write a letter to the IRS and send it certified mail. A notation will go into your file and if any issues come up in the future, you can refer to that letter you sent. It would serve as a documentation trail that you, in good faith, tried to update the IRS on your personal affairs.
Figure out out both ways -with and without her as a joint filer...then use the method that works best for you....probably not much change unless your IRA taxes are enough to make a standard deduction change.
Green card holders are required to file their worldwide income. If her status has expired, you are married to a nonresident alien and wpuld file martied filing separate. You have the option to file a declaration to treat her as a us resident and file a joint return, but again wirldwide income must be reported. You may have relief via the foreign income exclusion or foreign tax credit.
I married my wife in Michigan after she lived and worked part time in California for a few months. She owed no taxes in CA, but had to file a return in order to get her refund. The instructions on the CA forms said that if I filed a joint return with her on my US taxes, I then had to file a joint return with her on her California taxes. For that, any amount owed to CA above what I paid in Michigan I had to be pay to CA. This amount was considerable (knowing CA's high tax rates). This meant that even though I earned no income in California, I owed taxes to them, at least according to the instructions on the CA tax forms. Knowing no tax law in either state, we took the "what's right" action. She filed a single return in CA to get her refund, listing only her CA income. Since she had not worked in MI, we filed joint returns in MI and US, listing only my income.
File married filing separate. No need to elect joint return. Check filing requirements for Spain.
Does Spain tax investment income in IRA of resident aliens?
You have my sympathies. I doubt you’ll find your answer in the time left before you file. My step son died in Costa Rica with a large life insurance policy. He left big chunks of money to his ex, a Costa Rican, his daughter, his mother, and his housekeeper, a Nicaraguan living in Costa Rica.
It took the insurance company well over a year to pay out. During that time, the insurance company was required to pay interest on the distributions owed and to report that interest income to the IRS. No problems for everyone but the housekeeper. She’d never been to the US so had no Social Security number. The insurance company would not pay out just the principal to her, it had to pay the principal and the interest and would not pay out because she had not taxpayer ID number.
She owed not taxes on the principal, and she owed no taxes on the interest either. Phoning the IRS with a complicated question is an exercise in frustration. The local IRS office guy had a deer in the headlights look when I explained the situation. I had a phone appointment with an IRS “international taxes expert” who was very pleasant and told me she had no idea how to get this woman (very poor as you can imagine) a tax number and thus her money.
It took a couple of years to get her IEN and her insurance money. Good luck to you.
Not sure but they did recently start a program where you have to identify your worldwide assets with huge fines (starting at 100,000 Euros) if you don't comply. So if they aren't taxing it yet that doesn't mean they won't start taxing it in the future.
They will know you are alive when you file for SS. I haven’t filed in 8 years and my SS deposits come every month.
Thanks for the information. I may just skip filing this year and see what happens.
On searching I find that if your gross income exceeds $13,600 you have to file. But if you’re over sixty-five, social security income is NOT considered as gross income. So if you’re drawing down on your IRA retirement funds or other benefits in amount less than $13,600, you need not file a return. I’m going to stop filing next year, I think.
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