Taxes - Canadian with an American spouse

[MapleLeafBride]

Hi All,

While still a few months away from filing our taxes, my American husband and I have been discussing what exactly we should do. We got married this year (2013), but still live/work in separate countries. So all his income is American and all mine is Canadian. Does anyone have experience with this? Do we file under a married/separate tax return and just do our own returns in our respective countries? He mentioned that there's an option in the US where we file jointly (get a better exemption?), but that means I have to also do an American tax return as well as a Canadian one and I don't think they should be entitled to any of my money.
Anyway, any advice or tips about how people in a similar situation did theirs would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks and a happy 2014 to all!

 

[aminata2010]

Great post, I hope to hear more about this..as I am in the same situation.

 

[nortena]

Great question! I'm also in the same situation and haven't given this much thought... please if anybody has experience in this give us your insights.

 

[keesio]

My wife and I were in the same boat for 2012. She was living/working in the US while I was living/working in Canada. We filed separately because I thought it would be easier to deal with. But I am curious what people think since I'm not sure if our decision was the best one.

 

[aminata2010]

I would like to add..that I started a new position, and today as I was filling out my w-4 for taxes, it stated to pick SINGLE AND 1..if you are married but seperated or your spouse is a non citizen.

 

[keesio]

Oh, right. You can only file jointly if both are citizens. Both my wife and I are US citizens so we can file jointly, but so far have not.

 

[aminata2010]

Yea, personally, since my husband is in canada and a canadian citizen, I will not worry about it for now.

 

[MapleLeafBride]

My husband was telling me there is an option to file jointly in the US even if your spouse is a non-citizen. I would be given a SSN for tax purposes only (I couldn't work in the US with it for example). I don't know if there's an equivalent in Canada.

 

[keesio]

There is no equivalent in Canada (as far as I know). You file separately but reference each other's SIN number. That way they can keep track of which person claimed the various household credits and such