Hi-

I am a Resident Alien filing my NY State taxes (IT-201) and my status is Head of Household. I will be claiming my child as my qualifying dependent. My wife is a non-resident alien and does not have an ITIN yet (she also has no US income). Since I am filing Head of Household, do I even need her ITIN for the NY State taxes? I understand it is needed for the federal taxes (since I am taking an exemption for her), but the NY State taxes do not allow anyone to take an exemption for any spouse. Any spousal information would seem unnecessary when filing as head of household. If anyone could confirm that this is the case, that would be great.

Thanks,

ASN

You are NOT head of household. Don't claim this status on your tax return, or you will invite audit.
Read this: Your U.S. Tax Return: Filing Status for Married (http://taxipay.blogspot.com/2008/02/filing-status-for-married.html)

You are married and you can only file resident return as Married Filing Jointly or Married Filing Separately. In both the cases you need ITIN of your wife. You can attach W7 (ITIN application) with your tax return.

Hi- Thanks for answering my question. I thought I could be head of household because my wife is a non-resident alien. According to Publication 501 on the IRS website:

"Nonresident alien spouse. You are considered unmarried for head of household purposes if your spouse was a nonresident alien at any time during the year and you do not choose to treat your nonresident spouse as a resident alien. However, your spouse is not a qualifying person for head of household purposes. You must have another qualifying person and meet the other tests to be eligible to file as a head of household."


From this it seems like I qualify for head of household because since I am married to a nonresident alien, I am considered unmarried. My son would count as my qualifying person for the head of household. Please let me know if I am misinterpreting this. Perhaps you can amend your blog with this information if it is correct.

Thanks

ASN

Did your son live with you?
Also let me know the page number of Publication 501 for the information you are referring to.

Hello,

I quoted Page 7 of Publication 501 (2007) from the section entitled "Nonresident alien spouse."

Yes my son lives with me and was actually born in November 2007 so according to Page 11 of the same publication, he is considered to have lived with me for all of 2007.

"Death or Birth of a Child: A child who was born or died during the year is treated as having lived with you all year if your home was the child’s home the entire time he or she was alive during the year. The same is true if the child lived with you all year except any required hospital stay following birth."

Please let me know if I am interpreting this correctly.

ASN

Yes, even if a child is born on Dec 31, 2007, you can claim the child's exemption on your 2007 tax return.
Yes, you can file as Head of Household.

Could you please amend your original response so as not to mislead others?