I had a dual-status year, but my spouse is a U.S. citizen. Are we really blocked from filing jointly?
I moved into the United States during the year and would otherwise be dual-status, but my wife is a U.S. citizen and we normally think in terms of one household return. Then I read the dual-status rules and saw the language about restrictions, including the no-joint-return concept in the ordinary dual-status setup. That made me think our filing options might be narrower than I expected.
Before I structure the whole year around a separate nonresident filing, I want to understand whether the spousal election changes that result. I am looking for the clean version of the rule: when a dual-status person really is stuck with the restrictions, and when the election to be treated as a resident changes the return into something else entirely.
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