You and your wife can elect to file a joint resident return under IRC Sec. 6013. However, you are both required to report your worldwide income on the joint return. You can eliminated double taxation through the foreign tax credit and/or the foreign earned income exclusion. If you do not elect to file jointly, you can claim a spousal exemption for your wife on a separate return as long as your wife has no US source income and is not the dependent of another taxpayer. In either case, you must obtain an individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN) for your wife.

I agree with Gary. I think you should further look into making a so-called Sec 6013(g) election for your nonresident alien (NRA) spouse. One can actively choose to treat the foreign spouse as “resident” alien for tax purposes by making what is known as a Section 6013(g) election. Making the election generally means the couple can file using MFJ status. In certain cases, this can be very advantageous – for example, tax benefits can result because of the lower tax rates and larger deductions that are available when the couple can file using MFJ status. Tax benefits can also arise because of foreign tax credits attributable to the foreign spouse. These credits can be used to offset US tax liability on foreign source income. Tax benefits can result, too, if one spouse is not working or that spouse’s income is excluded under the foreign earned income exclusion. In these cases, there is no additional income on which the couple would pay tax, but they would still get the benefits of MFJ status.

You might find my tax blog posting of interest on this topic http://blogs.angloinfo.com/us-tax/2012/06/18/married-to-a-non-us-spouse-filing-the-us-income-tax-return-fbars-and-form-8938-part-ii/

Let us know if you need further help.

Virginia La Torre Jeker, J.D., vjeker@eim.ae

Since your wife is not a US Citizen and lives in the Philippines, you cannot claim her as a dependent.