Wife moved to Canada, US tax benefits for husband?

[hennady]

Hi,
Just curious if I'm calculating everything correctly.
My Canadian wife(only Canadian citizenship, in US she had visa) lived for 2months of 2013 in US and moved back to Canada. (she lived in US whole 2011, 2012). During these 2 months she had 0 income. In Canada she started to work.
I lived whole 2013 in US. So I tried to do married filling jointly for US tax. I used 1116 to calculate foreign income credit for my wife's Canadian income. After that I calculated my tax as married filling separately. I got return $200 bigger than for the previous case...
Nothing special on forms. I.e. the only source of income of her and mine is main job. She got 60k in Canada, I got 60k in US.

So is it true, that for such simple case joint return would produce less US return than two separate? Or I'm missing something?

If separate US returns are more beneficial, in general, does she need to file US return if she had 0 income?

And if she must file US return, as I understand she would have 0 US tax liability. Is it correct?

Thank you in advance!

[nelsona]

Yes, a joint return almost ALWAYS is lower. In fact, if she was in Canada you should use 2555 to exempt her Cdn wages altogether, instead of 1116, and that should give you even less US tax.

[hennady]

Thank you for your answer and thank you for your suggestion! 2555 indeed looks much more attractive than 1116!