The One-Shot Election

The statute provides that a nonresident alien individual for whom this election is in effect SHALL BE TREATED AS A RESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES for purposes of chapter 1 — the income tax chapter — FOR ALL OF SUCH TAXABLE YEAR. Chapter 1 is where gross income is defined, and gross income for a US resident is worldwide. This is not a filing-status label pinned onto an otherwise nonresident spouse; it changes what income the return has to report.

The election is available to an individual who, at the close of the taxable year, was a NONRESIDENT ALIEN married to a CITIZEN OR RESIDENT of the United States, PROVIDED BOTH OF THEM MAKE THE ELECTION. It requires the couple to act jointly — neither spouse can make it alone, and it is made by filing a joint return for that year.

Where an election is TERMINATED — by revocation, by the death of either spouse, by legal separation, or by the Secretary for failure to keep adequate records — the statute provides that THOSE TWO INDIVIDUALS SHALL BE INELIGIBLE TO MAKE AN ELECTION UNDER THIS SUBSECTION FOR ANY SUBSEQUENT TAXABLE YEAR. Not a waiting period. Not a fresh start after remarriage to the same person. Ineligible, permanently, for that pair. A couple who elects for one difficult year and revokes it once income patterns change has closed the door on ever using it again, including in a later year when it might have suited them far better.

A separate provision lets a couple elect resident treatment for the whole year in which the alien spouse FIRST becomes a US resident partway through it, so long as they are married to a citizen or resident at year end and both elect. It solves a narrower problem than the general election — a mid-year arrival, not an ongoing nonresident spouse — and it carries its own one-time limit: made once, it cannot be made again by that couple in a later year either. The two elections are easy to conflate and answer different questions.