Help with filing taxes when spouse's ITIN is expired - husband living abroad in Ecuador

Thanks for explaining! I had no idea I shouldn't be using Head of Household. So I've been filing incorrectly for the past 2 years? Will this cause problems with the IRS? Should I file amended returns?

You might need to consider amended returns, especially if filing as Head of Household gave you significant tax benefits you weren't entitled to. The IRS typically has a 3-year window for audits, so returns from the past two years could potentially be reviewed. Whether you need to amend depends on your specific situation. If your spouse had no US income and you would have received similar tax treatment filing as Married Filing Separately, the practical difference might be minimal. However, technically speaking, using the correct filing status is important for compliance. I'd recommend consulting with a tax professional who can review your past returns and help determine if amendments are necessary based on your specific circumstances.

How does this actually work? Do real tax professionals review your documents or is it just some algorithm making guesses? I'm worried about putting my tax info into some random website.

I'm kinda skeptical about these tax AI tools. How accurate is it for something specific like ITIN issues? The IRS rules for international situations are super complicated and always changing. Did it give you actual IRS citations or just general advice?

The service uses both AI analysis and tax professional review for complex situations. It's not just making guesses - it references actual IRS publications and tax code. The documents stay encrypted and secure too, which was important to me. For ITIN issues specifically, it was incredibly accurate. It provided exact citations to IRS publications about using expired ITINs and the proper filing status options for my situation with an international spouse. It even flagged potential audit triggers in my previous returns that I had no idea about.

Wait, so this service just gets you through to a regular IRS agent faster? Couldn't you just keep calling yourself and eventually get through? Why pay someone else to do that?

This sounds totally made up. The IRS doesn't have agents who just sit around waiting for calls from third-party services. I've worked with international tax issues for years and there's no magical back door to reach specialized agents. They put you in the same queue as everyone else.

It doesn't get you to a different agent - it handles the waiting for you. I tried calling myself multiple times over several days and would get disconnected after 2+ hours on hold. With Claimyr, I submitted my request and they called me when they reached an agent, so I didn't have to sit on hold all day. The IRS absolutely does have agents who specialize in different tax areas, including international issues. When you finally reach someone, you can ask to be transferred to an agent familiar with international taxpayer issues. The value isn't some "back door" - it's that they have the technology to stay in the queue when most of us would get disconnected or have to hang up.

That's interesting! So there might be a way I could still file as Head of Household? Do you know if there are any risks to using this approach with an expired ITIN? Would I need to attach additional forms?

The Head of Household status would only be available if you meet certain requirements - generally having a qualifying dependent (like a child) living with you and providing more than half their support. If you choose to treat your nonresident alien spouse as a resident alien, you'd both need to file using Married Filing Jointly, not Head of Household. This requires submitting a statement with your return and both spouses signing it. The risk is that your husband would then be taxed on his worldwide income, not just US income. If you don't make this election, then Married Filing Separately is usually the correct status, and you can use his expired ITIN without issue. You might want to include a brief statement explaining the ITIN situation with your return.

That's not completely accurate. ITINs issued before 2013 have been expiring on a rolling schedule regardless of use. ITINs with middle digits 70-87 expired in 2019 and middle digits 88-92 expired in 2020. Middle digits 93-99 expired in 2021.

Thanks for the correction! You're right about the rolling expiration schedule for older ITINs. I forgot about that policy. If the OP's husband got his ITIN recently (within the last 10 years), then it would only expire after 3 years of non-use on a tax return. If it's an older one, it might have expired based on those middle digit schedules regardless of use. The IRS sent notices about those expirations, but if he's abroad, he might have missed them.