:confused: I am a US citizen. I got married on 11/2007. She is still in india (has not been in US) and probably will be there for a few more months (finishing her Post doctoral work) and I have started her paperwork to bring her to US. These are my questions:

1) From reading this site - it is suggested that I should file as "Married filing jointly". Is this correct.

2) She does not have a SSN or visa of any kind. I will have to file a "W-7" and then IRIS will issue her a ITIN. Then only I can file state taxes.

3) IRIS can and may be request details (payroll stub) regarding her income in INDIA.

4) I do not know if she has already filed taxes in INDIA. Does this matter?

Yes, you can file as Married Filing Jointly or Married Filing Separately. In both the cases you will attach form W7 with your tax return.

Yes, on Married Filing Jointly, you will report your spouse's Indian income. If she has a job in India, then from every paycheck the tax is withheld by the employer. So it does not matter if she filed the taxes or not. Taxes withheld will be the taxes paid.

In India, the tax period is from April to March, so she must have already filed return for the U.S. return period Jan 07 to March 07. For April 07 to Dec 07, the paycheck statement will work.

Another point is that you can report the Indian earned income and then file Form 2555 to exclude the earned income up to $85,700. That means you just report income on one line of form 1040 and then deduct that income on another line of Form 1040.

All true EXCEPT a point about the Foreign Income Exclusion.

Even though her income is NOT directly taxed, it will be added to yours in order to put you in a HIGHER tax bracket.

Example: Let's assume you made $70,000 and she made $20,000. After taking the standard deduction and both personal exemptions (a total of $17,500) , you are clearly in the 15% tax bracket after her income is excluded. However, her income is added to your income, pushing you into the 25% tax bracket, even though her income is NOT TAXED.

The net result is that about $10,000 of your income is taxed at the 25% level, resulting in an additional $1,000 in taxes.

This formula was changed just prior to the end of 2006, and it was changed WITHOUT a lot of public notice. It was a NASTY surprise to those whose Foreign Income exceeded the exempt amount. It result in people with taxable incomes of $30,000 being taxed at the 25% to 28% tax level.

They STILL came out ahead, but they ended up with rather large tax bills when they expected to pay little or no taxes at all.

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Originally Posted by jpwin1

:confused: I am a US citizen. I got married on 11/2007. She is still in india (has not been in US) and probably will be there for a few more months (finishing her Post doctoral work) and i have started her paperwork to bring her to US. These are my questions:

1) From reading this site - it is suggested that i should file as "Married filing jointly". Is this correct.

2) She does not have a SSN or visa of any kind. I will have to file a "W-7" and then IRIS will issue her a ITIN. Then only i can file state taxes.

3) IRIS can and may be request details (payroll stub) regarding her income in INDIA.

4) I do not know if she has already filed taxes in INDIA. Does this matter?

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Thank you for your input. Appreciate the prompt and detailed response.

Glad to help!