My husband came to the US in 2004 and works as a research scientist at a university. According to Article 19 of the tax treaties between China and the United States, he is exempted from federal tax. We got married in 2006 and we are considering filing our taxes jointly this year. If we do file jointly, can he still get the tax treaty exemption?
If he does get the exemption, then we are essentially applying the married filing jointly deduction and 2 exemptions on just my income. This sounds too good to be true, can somebody please enlighten me? Thank you!

PS: I called IRS twice today, and I was told that since my husband is on a H1-B visa, the tax treaty does not apply to him. Is that true? I've read the tax treaty document I downloaded from the IRS website over and over, but no where did it mention H visa.

If you file jointly, he definitely LOSES the exemption.

There is some argument on this between Taxsearcher and me. I believe that any foreign national on an H-1B visa CANNOT claim a treaty exemption. TaxSearcher says that the China exemption does apply even to H-1B visa holders. I have not read the treaty in detail, so I will defer to his greater wisdom.

Try PM'ing TaxSearcher for his opinion.