Client is NRA on F1 visa in grad school in California with spouse on F2 with him. Federal has to be MFS, which means the CA return also must be MFS. Client has income + stipend from school. Spouse has no income, but CA is a community property state.
IRC 879 means we just file one return attributing wages to the F1 client, but two CA returns must be filed splitting the income MFS.
Is this right? We need to get an ITIN for the spouse just to file the CA return MFS?
It seems that none of the listed reasons on Form W-7 would even fit for this situation. The instructions for Reason (g) "Dependent/spouse of a NRA holding a US visa" implies this only works for pre-2018 returns.