Filed taxes as single when married.

[david_dawei]

One exemption when filing "Married, filing separately". Your tax liability remains at $0, so no fees or penalties should be incurred.

 

There's a section in the directions on "Assembling Your Return" - your old 1040 is not included.

 

When you submit your Affidavit of Support, be sure to include both the 1040 and 1040X.

 

Ah yes...

 

When I did this, I actually made the change to filing jointly and that is when the exemptions change. So the next time he changes for that, after she is here, he'll fill out the earlier part(s).

 

Does anyone see a limitation to changing status? Meaning whether he cannot do a second change? That would be worth at least knowing.

[Randy W]

 

One exemption when filing "Married, filing separately". Your tax liability remains at $0, so no fees or penalties should be incurred.

 

There's a section in the directions on "Assembling Your Return" - your old 1040 is not included.

 

When you submit your Affidavit of Support, be sure to include both the 1040 and 1040X.

 

Ah yes...

 

When I did this, I actually made the change to filing jointly and that is when the exemptions change. So the next time he changes for that, after she is here, he'll fill out the earlier part(s).

 

Does anyone see a limitation to changing status? Meaning whether he cannot do a second change? That would be worth at least knowing.

 

 

Don't forget that his tax liability is probably zero - so there is no advantage to doing this. The DISADVANTAGE would be that he would then be required (theoretically) to report her income also - but his tax liability I expect would still remain at zero.

 

But yes, I'm fairly certain that you can file as many 1040X's as you can justify.

 

The instructions say to allow 8 to 12 weeks for the Form 1040X to be processed - after that, I would expect that the tax transcripts would reflect the new information (i.e., Married, filing separately, instead of single), and NOT the old. That's assuming, though, that the 1040X would even be processed - it's not entirely clear that it would, since there is no change in tax liability.

[david_dawei]

I am not sure I totally follow.. meaning: If he changes later to Joint, he may get money back.. her foreign income will likely be a non-issue anyways.

 

At least he can run the numbers later and then decide...

[Randy W]

I am not sure I totally follow.. meaning: If he changes later to Joint, he may get money back.. her foreign income will likely be a non-issue anyways.

 

At least he can run the numbers later and then decide...

 

Well, yes - it's not up to us to debate his tax return.

 

My understanding is that he lived in China the whole time, while filing singly with zero tax liability. Thus, there WAS no advantage to filing as Married. And further, that he won't be getting a refund from zero.

 

The only advantage to filing Married is from the immigrations point of view - which is what this topic is about.

 

But only he will know if that's the correct scenario, or not. If he has paid any taxes, maybe he CAN get a refund by filing jointly.

[david_dawei]

I don't see a debate going on but rather helping the OP look at it from various sides, pros and cons.

 

If he had never filed, then I can see minimizing the filing but as he clearly filed the wrong status, that looms larger, IMO, than which exact married status to do when.

 

It is up to him to figure all that out in the end and do what helps them the most.

[JeaCam`]

Hi folks,

My husband is currently trying to sort out his taxes for 2013. My question is, since he is late in doing so, but is filing for taxes in the year 2013, does he file under :"single" status since we only got married January 20014? Ie since he *was* single during the timeframe for which he is filing, does he file as single (even though we are married now).

[Randy W]

Hi folks,

My husband is currently trying to sort out his taxes for 2013. My question is, since he is late in doing so, but is filing for taxes in the year 2013, does he file under :"single" status since we only got married January 20014? Ie since he *was* single during the timeframe for which he is filing, does he file as single (even though we are married now).

 

He was single for the entire year for which he is filing, so he would file as 'single'

 

He would have had to have married by Dec. 31 in order to file as 'married'

[JeaCam`]

Thank you Randy!