Making the choice to treat nonresident spouse as a resident

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maskdoll
Posts: 21
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2019 12:40 am

Making the choice to treat nonresident spouse as a resident

Post by maskdoll »

Here is some background: Husband works in the U.S., wife works in Canada, for the past several years and for now. Don't expect to change in near future. Several years ago, when the husband learnt to file U.S. tax, he applied an ITIN for the wife, aka, treating nonresident wife as a U.S. resident. So the first year, they filed married filling jointly. Since it's too much work, later years, he only filed married filling separately. Since the wife stayed in Canada without U.S. income, she didn't file anything.

The issue: According to IRS, once made the choice to be treated as a U.S. resident for federal income tax and withholding purposes, it applies to all later years unless suspended or ended in one of the ways shown below:
Revocation by either spouse
Death of either spouse
Legal separation
Inadequate records

Apparently, we didn't write to revoke the choice, and in the past few years, only the husband filed the U.S. tax. So is the wife overdue U.S. filing for the past few years? (Wife shouldn't have any tax overdue, as all her income comes from Canada and Canada tax is higher than U.S.) Would there be any penalties? What should we do now?
ND
Posts: 291
Joined: Thu Feb 21, 2013 5:28 pm

Re: Making the choice to treat nonresident spouse as a resident

Post by ND »

maskdoll
Posts: 21
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2019 12:40 am

Re: Making the choice to treat nonresident spouse as a resident

Post by maskdoll »

Nelsona, where are you? Your insight, please
KathleenOddo
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2022 4:56 am

Re: Making the choice to treat nonresident spouse as a resident

Post by KathleenOddo »

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nelsona
Posts: 18314
Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2004 2:33 pm
Location: Nowhere, man

Re: Making the choice to treat nonresident spouse as a resident

Post by nelsona »

Was there something unsatisfactory with ND's answer. That is what 9100 is for.

There is also a Table 1-1 in IRS Pub, 54, but I suspect that would have had to have been invoked the year you fisrt decided to "un-elect". Again, 9100.
nelsona non grata. Non pro. Please Search previous posts, no situation is unique as you might think. Happy Browsing :D
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