There are two parts to this, basically I'm hoping for a consensus. We'd like to file MFS and have my income be deducted by some of the property taxes. I haven't crunched the numbers yet.
1) Can Marrieds switch status from year to year (ie last year MFJ, this year MFS without repercussions? 2) Can deductions (eg real estate taxes) be taken as whole by one of the spouses when MFS? -- or must they be evenly split, or some formula? Why: 1) Have been filing MFJ for years. 2) We're getting hammered by the AMT (extra 10K projected for 06) 3) Due to AMT we get no reduction in tax liability for ~24K in real estate taxes 4) Real estate taxes are split 17 & 7 (primary res and 2nd res) 5) taxable spouse income about 28X (yes 28) mine. 6) Real estate titles held in both names 7) my income is enough that the property taxes could help reduce my income. And by myself I'm not subject to AMT. So, we hope to reduce my tax liability, spouses AMT liability and overall reduce the tax liabiilty as a whole.It`s some state our tax code is in when the public goes to an anonymous public for info. An even scarier state is that that anonymous info is usually more accurate and certainly more informative than IRS publications! thanks folks.
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