divorce in 2008 and filing status as married filing jointly

[amitda]

Hello,
I had a divorce in 2008 in India. Prior to that I have been filing as married filing jointly on H1B for 2 yrs. Now for tax yr 2008 as per IRS my filing status should be single ,even if was married for part of year. But that puts me in a very high tax bracket and I will have to pay $7k more taxes as compared to married filing jointly.
Now I have foll questions..

Q1) Can IRS put a penalty to me in future if I filed as married. How much would that be.

Q2) Since divorce happened in India will it be considered legal in USA ?

Q3) In future if I remarry and bring my wife to USA then for applying for her ITIN, will IRS question me about my prev divorce, or try to lookup about my filing status from the year in which I got divorced.

[txh1b]

1.Dont even think of tax fraud. It could lead to several complications including denial of immigration benefits and jail time.
2. When the marriage in India was considered for claiming married benefits, what makes you think the divorce isn't?
3. It would not only be IRS that you need to worry about but the VO and GC processing where your entire history is dug up.Yours may be even considered as a fraud marriage. Don't play with US laws.

[amitda]

I donot have plans for applying for GC or Citizenship anytime even in future.
But the only concern is that since I am an IT professional, I may leave USA and come back in future again on another H1B. So at that time if I get remarried and bring my future wife , then I will need to apply a new ITIN number for her. So either during her H4 stamping or during ITIN application , I think they would want to see my decree of divorce. At that time if they pull my return from their database for the year 2008, then i think they may question me why I filed as Married and ask for penalty. I want to know how big that could be. and If that penalty is not worth saving $7k in taxes now.

[txh1b]

It is fraud. Period. Knowingly doing it is a bigger crime and you will deal with jail time when caught. Don't mess with IRS.