prohias

I'm not an expert, this is just my experience and also what I know from many hours of research. In terms of the agent, they handle the W-7 *and* the tax return, and submit them together. The issue is that they need both signatures on the return. If you are not physically together, I assume you'll need to mail her the signature page, have her sign it, and then have her mail it back to you. The agent of course would be able to answer more questions about this. If you can afford a few hundred dollars, I strongly recommend going through H&R Block or another certified acceptance agent. Just my opinion.

Alternatively, you could do your taxes by hand and file the W-7 with it. Honestly, I was too worried about making sure the process was done correctly that I felt better about using H&R Block even though it costed money. The acceptance agent there knew all about W-7s and had done this kind of thing before. And you get a big tax benefit for filing as jointly married, so it was worth it.

I don't think you're going to like my answer (and it may not be true). But because of the Turbotax issue (which I also encountered), my conclusion was that there is no way to file as jointly married through Turbotax AND file a W-7 at the same time. Yes, you could use 999-99-9999 as the social, but it's supposed to be left blank for the ITIN application. And, annoyingly, Turbotax will not let you file jointly married without a SS# entered. What I wound up doing was going through H&R Block, specifically to someone certified as an IRS "acceptance agent" for the purposes of filing a W-7 and a return. Yes, I had to pay about $300 for the filing fee, but the benefit is that you don't have to send in any of your spouses documents (license, passport, etc.). They just make copies of it at the H&R Block office. You'd have to call H&R Block to find which one has someone who is an IRS "acceptance agent". That's what I did and there was only one office who employed someone with that certification.

Yes, I know that. I was just trying to help others in case they were concerned that they needed to provide proof of mailing as well as a copy of the return.

I need you to clarify something. Normally you have to file the W-7 *with* a completed tax return. Did you not do that and just submitted the W-7 by itself?

I was in the exact same situation (hadn't filed 2020, 2021, or 2022, due to waiting for an ITIN). I filed all the returns in paper form simultaneously and just sent in a copy of the full returns and the W-2s, including the scanned signature page. I did not submit proof of mailing. DQ'd with no issues.