A US Citizen recently married in Feb. 2007 to an Indian Citizen who is in process of getting green card (received in Feb. 2008) and arriving in US at that time for the first time.

Since the Indian Citizen will not have their green card until Feb. 2008, they will receive their SSN at that time.

Can the US Citizen file as Single / Married Filing Jointly / Married Filing Separately?

You can only file as Married filing Jointly or Married Filing Separately.

Married Filing Jointly is always better option. It does not matter if your spouse is the U.S. resident or not. Yes, you will need her SSN to file. So file your return only after you get her SSN. Also on the 2007 joint return, you must report your's as well as your spouse's world wide income.

More than likely, filing jointly is the best option.

However, if the Indian citizen received a LARGE sum of money prior to arriving in the U.S. he/she may want to file a dual-status return in order to exclude that money from U.S. taxes.

Does the US Citizen need to fill out any special forms from the IRS?

Thanks for the help so far.

No just the regular tax return form 1040 and its associated schedule if needed.

Not quite true. There IS a statement that the non-resident alien spouse must sign that states that spouse chooses to be treated as a resident alien for all of 2007 that must be signed by the spouse and attached to the return.

If you fail to attach the statement, it probably will NOT delay the return, but the statement IS a requirement per IRS Pub 519.

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Originally Posted by AtlantaTaxExpert

Not quite true. There IS a statement that the non-resident alien spouse must sign that states that spouse chooses to be treated as a resident alien for all of 2007 that must be signed by the spouse and attached to the return.

If you fail to attach the statement, it probably will NOT delay the return, but the statement IS a requirement per IRS Pub 519.

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This person recently arrived in the US and is in the process of filing jointly with their spouse - the US citizen.

However the Indian Tax year spans from April 1st 2006 - March 31st, 2007 and this Indian citizen was already taxed for that.

Does he / she still have to report the income between January 1st, 2007 and March 31st, 2007 or only income after the Indian tax year (April 1st, 2007 to December 31st, 2007).

Thanks for all your help.