Canadian married to US living in Canada - USA Tax Question

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jigar
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2012 12:41 am

Canadian married to US living in Canada - USA Tax Question

Post by jigar »

Hello

I am a Canadian Citizen married to a US Citiizen in the US. My wife worked in the US until May of last year and moved to Canada Jan 2012. My wife does not have Canadian PR nor is she working in Canada. I have one joint account with my wife in US that has around $1k in it. I have no US income nor have I ever worked there or stayed there more than 1 week. I do not have a SSN either.
When my wife does her taxes in US do i need to be included in her taxes? if so, what kind of information do they need. I remember when I did the canadian taxes last year, since she was not a permanant resident it did not want me to include any of her income information.


I had this posted on CancuksAbroad and was directed to this site by "AGN" who said She can include you, but is not required. The problem for her is that if you are left off, she can only filed married filing separately, which has pounitve tax rates and exceptions."

In response to the above comment, not having done a US tax form, don't I need to have a SSN? do we do one form? If so, what kind of information do i need to give? Most of my tax information from banks, investments don't come until the end of March. I know my wife wants to do the taxes sooner than that.


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

Post by nelsona »

You would file for an ITIN with the joint return.

The goal is to pay as little US tax on her US inocme (she should never have to pay any on her Cdn income, whenever that might occur, not should you).

So she can prep a MFS return, without any of your income, and an MFJ with your income, but then with your wages excluded and your Cdn tax credited, and se which yields a lower US tax bill.

She can at least prep the return with your info, to get an idea if its worth doing MFJ or not. In future years it won't matter, sicne she will have no US income (correct?), so won;t owe any US tax regardless of how she files (she will file every year though).
nelsona non grata. Non pro. Please Search previous posts, no situation is unique as you might think. Happy Browsing :D
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