# Do I have to put my NRA spouse's name on the 1040 if filing separately?



## Grace72

I am a Canadian permanent resident married to a same-sex NRA spouse. Until this year I filed as single but with the supreme court ruling I guess I am now married in the eyes of the IRS.

I am filing as married filing separately and put "NRA' for the SSN. Can I also put "NRA" for spouses name or do I have to share that. I suppose it doesn't really matter but I resent even more intrusion into my life.


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## BBCWatcher

There are many threads discussing this topic, so you might wish to review those. (Use this forum's Search function.)

In brief, the IRS's instructions say you must. Congratulations on your newly acquired civil rights...that come with a few responsibilities.


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## Grace72

Thanks! I searched but didn't find this exact information.


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## Bevdeforges

I have yet to find the section that states that you "must" give your spouse's name when filing as married filing separately. I have always put "NRA" in both the spaces for "spouse's name" and "spouse's SSN" and have never had any comment or come back on the issue.

If you hope to e-file your return, however, you may well find that the IRS computers will reject the return if you have indicated "NRA" for the spouse's name. That's a programming issue, not a matter of law.
Cheers,
Bev


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## BBCWatcher

Bev, we've had this debate, and there's really no question about it. IRS Form 1040, Filing Status, Checkbox 3: "Married filing separately. Enter spouse's SSN above and full name here (fill-in blank)."

IRS Form 1040 Instructions, Page 12: "Name and Address. Print or type the information in the spaces provided. If you are married filing a separate return, enter your spouse's name on line 3 instead of below your name." Then, Page 13: "Line 3. Married Filing Separately.... Be sure to enter your spouse's SSN or ITIN on Form 1040. If your spouse does not have and is not required to have an SSN or ITIN, enter 'NRA.'" That's the only space where "NRA" is a valid answer in certain circumstances.

IRM/IRC 6721 ("Failure to File Correct Information Returns") governs. Per the IRM the IRS has the discretion (but not obligation) to consider the failure to provide this required information as "de minimus" and waive penalties. But equally they could also consider it within the "Intentional Disregard of Rules and Regulations" section of the IRM and increase penalties.

The IRS demands answers to 100+ questions in a typical tax return. They're annoying and invasive, stipulated. This question is one among 100+ such questions.

Yes, random strangers on the Internet suggest doing strange things on your tax return that have zero support in law, regulations, or instructions. Also stipulated. Ask Wesley Snipes what he thinks about the tax advice he got.

Please find us a law, regulation, instruction, or even private letter ruling that says it's OK not to write your spouse's full name in that space or to write something else in that space. I'd very much appreciate that option so that at least the 100+ invasive and annoying questions are reduced to 99+.


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## maz57

Yes, this has been discussed before on this forum. BBC has dug out the specific wordings which seem crystal clear in their meaning. I suspect the reason the IRS asks for this information is so they can check to see if there is a corresponding MFS return filed by the other spouse. (Which there won't be in the case of a NRA spouse because they are, well, NRA.)

The problem is that the IRS obviously never considered the case of expats when designing the form, because its also true that a NRA spouse has absolutely NO obligation to provide any information to the IRS. Providing such information is not only annoying and invasive, its absolutely useless to the IRS because such a person is not in their system and a name without a birthdate/SSN/ITIN is meaningless to them. My spouse informed me that it would be an indictable offense for me to provide ANY information about them to the IRS. I fully respected that right to not be identified to a foreign government. I think I mentioned I was far more scared of my spouse than I was of the IRS. The IRS doesn't know the name of my NRA spouse, they never will, and the IRS has never said anything about my little exercise of civil disobedience.

So the answer to the question is yes, you are required to provide the name of your NRA spouse. What will happen if you don't and write NRA instead? Nothing. Why would the IRS bother with the failure to provide something which is useless to them anyway. In actual fact, they are lucky you are filing a return at all. Most expats don't.


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## maz57

I just had the idea that if one wanted to take a harmless poke at the IRS, one could fill in that blank with "Steven Harper" (the guy who is inviting the IRS into Canada) or "unknown". 

On second thought, bad idea; the IRS is totally humourless.


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## Bevdeforges

Actually, along those same lines, I was considering perhaps writing out the NRA thing in the "spouse's name" blank - Non Resident Alien. It could "trick" the e-filing system into thinking you have filled in a name rather than the standard abbreviation.

Too late for this year, but maybe I'll try that next time and see how it flies.
Cheers,
Bev


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## BBCWatcher

maz57 said:


> The IRS doesn't know the name of my NRA spouse, they never will....


Perhaps, but in the vast majority of cases it would be because the IRS simply did not bother to look. Your spouse's name is about 999 times out of 1000 known publicly and easily discoverable. Especially when one's spouse is busy posting all sorts of information to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. despite your/my reservations. 

I disagree that the IRS wouldn't need to know your spouse's name even if that spouse is a NRA. Non-trivial U.S. source income requires a tax filing, and the IRS (representing the public interest at large) has an interest in knowing whether NRA spouses, just like anyone else, are filing if required, are filing with the correct filing status, are genuinely NRAs (entitled to SSN/ITIN relief), are not committing acts of "tax bigamy" (e.g. acting as the alleged NRA spouse of someone else filing MFJ), are not using known aliases that merit additional investigation, are not illegal minors or other illegal "spouses," are not in receipt of unreported U.S. gifts and/or estates, that there's not failure to withhold financial proceeds (W-8BEN v. W-9 discrepancies, such as U.S. POD financial account payouts), improper claims for U.S. Social Security spousal benefits, inconsistencies with Section 6013(g) elections, some rare but possible problems with refundable tax credit claims (e.g. adoption tax credits when only married couples can adopt in many foreign jurisdictions), indications of the reasonableness of Foreign Housing Exclusion expenses, and several other potential compliance problems. This question and its answer are still highly relevant in myriad ways involving NRA spouses (or "spouses").

If the IRS were asking for your spouse's bra size, for example, they'd struggle to justify that question's relevance. But not this question.

I'd think of it this way. If you provide the full name of your spouse (as the IRS directs), and there's no reason why that name generates suspicion, no problem. If you fail to provide your spouse's full name, score a point or three in increasing your chance of an audit. How much a non-answer (or evasive or untruthful answer) to this question increases your chance of an audit, I have no idea.


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## Bevdeforges

If the IRS is really as paranoid as all that, then they have every reason to want to know details about just about every person on the planet, whether or not they are married to a US citizen. Of course, in the past, I have claimed that that does seem to be the ultimate goal of the US government - to have jurisdiction over everyone everywhere. 

The fact of the matter is that there are practical limits to what information the US can and does have access to. US source income is one of those areas where their control is pretty darned good. But information about income from outside the US is tougher to link up to "US taxpayers" and depends on the degree of cooperation between the government of the source of the income and the US IRS. The IRS is going to concentrate their efforts on cases where the prospect of return on time invested is the greatest.

And honestly, given the 30% withholding on US source income for "non-US persons" the IRS is perfectly happy if foreigners don't bother to file NR returns to claim the over withholding.
Cheers,
Bev


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## BBCWatcher

I wrote that the IRS has an interest in knowing the name of a tax filer's spouse whether that spouse is a NRA or not. I did not write that the IRS necessarily pursues particular lines of inquiry. In fact, I quite clearly suggested the IRS does not pursue many such lines of inquiry in my discussion of audit risk.

Maz57 argued an NRA spouse's name is "useless" to the IRS. Usefulness is not necessarily a requirement for the IRS to ask. However, if it were a requirement, then it's not a problem for the IRS. I disagree with Maz57 on that specific point and explained why I disagree. It should be quite clear that the IRS could easily argue that information is extremely useful. But please read (more) carefully: "useful" is a different word than "used."


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## maz57

BBCWatcher said:


> Perhaps, but in the vast majority of cases it would be because the IRS simply did not bother to look. Your spouse's name is about 999 times out of 1000 known publicly and easily discoverable. Especially when one's spouse is busy posting all sorts of information to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. despite your/my reservations.


The deal I made with my spouse was I'd leave them off the 1040; they'd leave me off the Facebook.


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## BBCWatcher

maz57 said:


> The deal I made with my spouse was I'd leave them off the 1040; they'd leave me off the Facebook.


I might take that deal if I could get it.


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