If a US citizen works abroad, they file 2555 and the non-US income is not taxed up to the limit.
If said US citizen moves back home, as long as they meet the form 2555 tests, the non-US income is still excluded, right?
If the US citizen marries a person they met abroad and on 12-31-16 the person is in the US and the visa is processing, how does that person file?
Still on a 2555? or is that just for citizens?
Does the person who is a non-citizen have the ability to exclude their income from the time living abroad (assuming they meet the 2555 tests) and also be part of married filing jointly?
Uhhh… this might be a question for a tax attorney rather than a general forum. Or an accountant. This just seems a little esoteric even for here.
Yah, just hoping someone had been through it 
https://www.irs.gov/publications/p519/index.html
^read Publication 519, especially Dual Status Aliens and Nonresident Spouse treated as a resident.
It would be wise to find a CPA who is familiar with this. He can help you figure out the best way to file in this
situation.
I pretty much this myself umpteen years ago. Chances are that it will be easier for you to read through the various IRS pubs and find out how to do it than it will be to find a Tax person who has the expertise you need.
In the past, the non-citizen spouse could elect to be treated as a US person for tax purposes. I expect that is still true. Keep digging through the instructions for non-residents, residents, etc. and you will probably hit on the specific current information.
In the past, non US income was excluded as per the 2555, but the exact amount of the exclusion had to be pro-rated for days resident/non-resident.
I 100% agree that you must speak with a tax attorney or a CPA. this type of stuff handled wrong can become a living nightmare.
We have found GOOD CPAs to be worth every penny! They handle especially esoteric stuff with ease and assurance. There are so many ways to mess up on the tax code–why risk it? Once you get your answers, you can do things yourself thereafter–or not.
I got this info today from a CPA who handles foreign stuff:
options are to:
- Elect to treat UK spouse as a US resident alien for the whole year and file 2555’s for both of them (totally fine for US citizens and US resident aliens)
- Elect to treat UK spouse as a US resident alien for the whole year and take a foreign tax credit for UK taxes paid on UK income (1116)
- File Married filing separately and do as she has done in past years for the income (2555)
Funny, most advice I had found was that it would be fraud to be MFS as the US citizen is married, so they have to say married & especially for someone in the midst of immigration, don’t file as single when you are telling the immigration people you are married.
Who the heck told you it was fraud for a married person to file as Married Filing Separately? That’s nuts. What would be fraud would be to file as Married Filing Separately if you weren’t married.
Not married filing separately, that’s fine, filing as single was a bad thing, especially for immigration. My typo!!