Married Filing Jointly in two separate states

My Wife and I got married in June'2006. Following is our situation Before our marriage my wife had been working in California with a company. After marriage she moved to Massachusetts and is working in MA for the same company. I have been in MA the whole year & have no income whatsoever from CA. We do not have any itemized deductions & do not have any complex investments/dividends etc. Following are the queries that I have

  1. What are our options filing federal and state taxes? a) Can we file jointly or separately? b) What are the options filing for state taxes? (MA & CA)
  2. More concerned regarding the state taxes. How do we file our state taxes? Do we have to file in both the states? If we want to file jointly how would it work for the state of CA where my spouse has worked for half the year & for the state of MA?
  3. If we File as Married Filing Jointly in each state but only for the time lived there how would we report our income on the Tax Forms. Specifically lets say my spouse earned "S1" dollars in CA and "S2" dollars in MA and I earned "M" dollars in MA how would we report these incomes to each state? Thanks

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Reply to
satish.grandhi
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Yes.

Check the states' instructions to see if they require the same filing status for state as you use for Federal.

Your wife definitely has a filing requirement as a part-year resident of both states. You have no CA filing requirement unless you file a joint Federal return AND CA requires that joint Federal filers must also file a joint state return. You can figure everything out by getting both states' instructions and spending some time. You may find it worth the money to hire someone to do your 2006 taxes. At this late date don't expect anyone to get it done by April 17, but you can get extensions.

-- Phil Marti Clarksburg, MD

Reply to
Phil Marti

The trap of MFS is that you BOTH must itemize or NEITHER of you can. Since you don't have itemized deductions, no problem. Also, most states require that your filing status on state returns be the same as on your federal return If you haven't yet filed your federal return, I would say that your situation is complicated enough (for example, she's a part-year resident of two states) that the only way to know for sure is to work it up both ways and see which one works out for the best. If you've already filed your federal return(s), you probably must use that same filing status on all of your state returns. MA return, with instructions on what to do if you are filing jointly as part-year resident + non-resident:

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Useful page on the same topic for CA
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-- John D. Goulden

Reply to
John D. Goulden

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

You are a full year resident of MA. Your wife is a part-year resident of CA, and a part-year resident of MA. For MA purposes, you cannot file a joint return. You must file married filing separately. You would file a full-year resident return on Form 1, and your wife a part-year resident return on Form 1 NR/PY. Your return would include your M dollars of income. Her return would include her S2 dollars of MA income (and any other income she received after she became a MA resident). For CA, assuming you had no CA source income, you have the choice of filing either married filing separately or jointly. Either way, you would use Form 540NR. Because of the graduated rates, all of your income from all sources is used to compute the average rate that would have resulted if your wife (if separate) or both of you (if joint) had been California residents for the entire year. That rate then applies to your wife's income from all sources received during the part of the year when she was a California resident, and any California source income she may have received after she became a nonresident (a final paycheck, for example, that might have been received after she moved to Massachusetts). She will probably be better off to file separately, but you should calculate it both ways. If there is some double-taxed income, e.g. a final paycheck, bonus, or other payment from your wife's CA employer received while she was a MA resident, MA will allow her credit for the CA tax on that income, limited to the proportion of her MA tax liability that relates to that income. Katie in San Diego

Reply to
Katie

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