I am a permanent resident with social security number (British)working in the USA .My husband lives and is from Jamaica he has no SSN I am the sole support what does it benefit me to file with him as a dependent? Also is a W7 the correct way to do this? Anything else tat might benefit ?

You will NOT claim him as a dependent.

You WILL file jointly with him.

This requires that you declare his Jamaican salary on your U.S. tax return, but because he is in Jamaica, you can then EXCLUDE the Jamaican salary using Form 2555 (Foreign Earned Income Exclusion).

You WILL need to submit Form W-7 to get him an Individual Tax Identification Number. The various ways to apply are listed below my title below.

If he is NOT scheduled to visit you in the U.S. any time soon, I recommend using the CAA option, due to the 100% success rate. I am a CAA, so if you wish to use my service, you can email me at the email address in my profile.

ATE

FIRST ALTERNATIVE: This certification can be done by the Jamaica embassy in Washington, D.C. or at one of the consulates in cities across the country. Assuming you do NOT want to drive there, you need to call the nearest consulate and arrange to have this process done via the mail. Since you usually must wait until June to file, you have time to get this done (the process, done via mail, can take up to three months to complete).

SECOND ALTERNATIVE: The IRS also has Tax Assistance Centers through which you may be able to have the passport verified as genuine, then submit the tax return and Form W-7 IN PERSON to be forwarded to the ITIN Processing Center in Austin, Texas for processing , without having to get the photocopies certified by your home country consulate.

You go to the TAC with your husband, his passport, the SIGNED Forms W-7, and the completed and SIGNED tax return with your W-2s.

The IRS official verifies the passports, asks a few questions, completes the certification paperwork, checks the Forms W-7 and tax return, then returns the passports with a receipt for the tax return and Forms W-7, which is sent to Austin, Texas for processing.

You leave the TAC with your husband, the passport and a receipt for the Forms W-7 and the tax return.

You would get the ITIN about six weeks after you left the TAC.

The tax returns are NOT processed at Austin, Texas, but rather forwarded to the regional IRS centers for processing, so the refund will come about one month AFTER you get the ITIN letters.

The list of the TACs are at the link below:

http://www.irs.gov/uac/TAC-Locations...on-is-Provided

Note that SOME of the Tax Assistance Centers take appointments; you need to call the ones near you to determine if any of them can give you an appointment. It sure beats waiting in line all day.

THIRD ALTERNATIVE. I am a Certifying Acceptance Agent, and I can certify the passport if the TACs are not close.

You would mail the passport and the SIGNED Form W-7 and SIGNED tax return to me. I would contact you via SKYPE, conduct a brief interview with your spouse, certify the passport, attach the certification to the SIGNED W-7 and sign both documents. I would also sign the tax return, then paperclip the W-7 with certification to the tax return, and then mail them to the IRS ITIN Processing Center in Austin, Texas.

The passport I would mail BACK to you via tracked PRIORITY MAIL, so the passport would be out of your possession for about a week.

The BIGGEST ADVANTAGE to this process is my success rate. to date, I have NEVER had a CAA ITIN application rejected (100% success rate).

The FINAL alternative is to mail in the actual passports themselves, something most of my clients are reluctant to do because...


If the IRS gets the passport, they hold it for about TWO months. Most clients are not enthusiastic about losing the use of their passport for that length of time.

This is a little late for the 2016 tax year, but you can only exclude his foreign earned income if he satisfies the physical presence test or bona fide residence test. In plain English that means he must not spend more than 30 days in the US in 2016. Failing this there is always the foreign tax credit.