Hi all. First time submitting taxes via mail. Trying to figure out next steps.
From what I understand, I have to send taxes by mail due to my wife not being an American citizen, but also needing to be present on the taxes. She doesn’t have a ssn due to her not being American. We also live abroad.
I sent my taxes march 19th via international mail. Today is may 5th. I called the irs and they say they don’t have any record of my taxes. I double checked the address I sent to, and it is correct. I made the mistake of not adding tracking to the package.
The deadline for expat taxes is June 15th I believe. I’m debating if I should wait another week to see if they show up in the system, or if I should send them again tomorrow.
Also, the IRS person said I should file for an extension. Though, if I send them again tomorrow, they will arrive before June 15th. Do I need to really file for an extension?
Thank you anyone for your replies.
Submitted taxes on march 19th from abroad. Still haven’t arrived?
byu/Classic-Fox945 intax
Posted by Classic-Fox945
3 Comments
The safest option is to file an extension and give them another month or two to see if it shows up. If it doesn’t, then you can resubmit (with tracking this time).
If you resubmit now, there’s still a good chance that they have/will get your original submission, and submitting a second copy is likely to confuse them and lead to significant processing delays, which is very annoying.
It’s entirely possible that your return is sitting in a stack, waiting to be typed in. It won’t show up anywhere in the IRS system until someone does that.
There’s no reason NOT to file for the extension.
There are some tax programs that will allow you to file with an NRA spouse. That said, are you filing a MFS return, or filing MFJ after making the election to have your NRA spouse treated as a resident alien? If the latter, has she applied for an ITIN?
That’s definitely frustrating, especially from abroad.
It’s actually not uncommon for mailed returns to take a while to show up in the IRS system, so the delay alone doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t received. The lack of tracking just makes it harder to know where things stand. But instead of calling you can also log in to your IRS account and look at the activity and the transcripts (hopefully this will save you time on Checking the status)
Since your wife doesn’t have an SSN, I’m assuming there’s an ITIN involved, that process is one of the main reasons these situations get a bit more complicated and slower (or did you send your return with NRA as her SSN?) .
Filing an extension can still be helpful just to give yourself more flexibility, especially if you’re unsure whether you’ll need to resend anything.
This is one of those cases where everything seems straightforward, but there are a few moving parts once you’re filing from abroad.
If you want to walk through your situation before deciding what to do next, I’m happy to help, but hope this gives you a bit more clarity 👍