I was wondering if I'm still considered "Single" for income tax returns, while I'm waiting for my wife's K3 process.

Thanks!

I believe that answer is that you are married. Technically I think your filing status would probably be married filing seperate if you are not including her on your return

I posed this very question to my accountant recently. He did some research and being married, even though my husband does not live in the US and has no social security number or income here, I will have to claim most of 2006 as married filing separately. Most likely he won't even be working in the US until the beginning of 2007 since he has to file AOS and EAD once he arrives here on K3.

and also, the non-US spouse will likely have to get an ITIN from the IRS, and fill out a form to say that their income will not be included. Any tax preparer (ie: HR Block) or accountant should have these forms, or should know where to find them.

There are benefits to filing as married, even if you file married filing separately. My hubby got a fairly big refund the years that we were separated, but married.

If you are married, you must file as married filing seperately or married filing joint... you cannot file single, even if your spouse is a non-resident alien

If you file married filing joint, you can take the option of treating your spouse as a resident alien for the tax year (and subsequently have their worldwide income subject to US taxation).. however, if you do it, you can't go back...

Depending on how much your spouse makes and can be excluded from the 1040 (less than $80,000), you would probably get a bigger refund if you were to file as married filing joint. (A person who lives outside the US and gets foreign income can exclude up to $80,000 of their worldwide income from taxation)

Of course, you'd have to get a ITIN for your spouse. You do this by filing a W-7 with your return and sending it to the Philadephia Tax Center.

My hubby filed as single during our K3 process, mainly due to his "laziness" of getting the ITIN and stuff No problem at all with IRS or with USCIS. When we did AOS, the officer didn't even look at the filing status for the previous year, she mainly concerned with how much he made and how many dependents he had.

There are some advantages of filing married, even if it's separately, but I just want to share my experience that we didn't have any problems even with filing single.

The USCIS won't care. The IRS won't care unless you get audited and it becomes known as a part of the review.

yeah, that may come back to bite him in the arse

In this case filling as single won't get him too much into problem as he won't be owning IRS anything, if anything else and he has to change his status to Married while being audited, IRS actually would have to send him a bigger refund check assuming his wife overseas income is not overboard like being in (UK or EU countries i would say, but for most other countries i doubt the spouse income will be high enough to create any major headache)

Hmm, really? When I called the IRS about this directly on Friday, they said just to write NRA in the SSN box and write a statement saying my husband is not a citizen or a PR and has never had any income from the US. Nothing about a W-9 or anything. And I just mailed them out today. Blahhh.

Becky&Sam,

You can file married joint if you wish - I did, while my wife was still living in her country, and it saved me a bundle.

Work the numbers both ways.

Yodrak

Filing single while you are married will only put IRS in advantage. My income back then was not high enough to even be considered here. If they audit us, we will be waiting for them to send us some checks. I doubt that they will though

Filing married while you are single is another story.

My husband is still overseas, but we filed married, filing jointly for 2005. I had him sign, and applied for an ITN for him. That was back in April and I just got the ITN last week. It can take a while. I have to file state taxes (already paid, but not filed) by this month, so it was nice to get the ITN. I also saved a bundle by claiming an unemployed spouse!

Im sure that the IRS wont care. After al you overpaid them a bunch unless your spouse had more than equivalent to US $80K.