MFS

It's a software "scenario" distinction, not a legal distiction. It would have been clearer if they had included with numbers 1 & 2 "both spouses filing."

You'll have to look at the returns it produces to see why #3 is "better" than #2. I suspect it's because #3 is claiming the nonfiling spouse's personal exemption.

A scenario distinction? It doesn't make sense to me yet. Do you mean showing the results based on if both the exemptions were on there? It IS because the Taxpayer is taking the spousal exemption. But it seems to me that that's wrong in every instance, in which case, What's the point of giving me that option?? (#3) Sorry, but I've had this jostling around inside my head for quite a while. (g) If I need to hammer it out with the Tax department of profx, I will. Just wanted to see if anyone could at least understand my bewilderment about this. Does it seem to you like 1 and 2 are the only options?

Could this be what #3 is about?

If you file a separate return, you can claim the exemption for your spouse only if your spouse had no gross income, is not filing a return, and was not the dependent of another taxpayer. This is true even if the other taxpayer does not actually claim your spouse as a dependent. This is also true if your spouse is a nonresident alien.

#1 and #2 are for the rule that either both should take standard deduction or both should itemize.

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That is the hypothesis but certainly not possible to tell from here precisely what is the difference. As Phil says, compare the results on a line-by-line basis to see what is different to understand the difference in returns based on what was different in the assumptions/values used.

In some cases, it just might _be_ appropriate but how are they to know whether it is or not for any particular filer? Hence, they give the option; you have to evaluate what that option actually does and decide if it fits your circumstances or not.

Let's try it this way.

It's information the program is using. For example, every tax prep program I've ever seen asks for the taxpayer's date of birth. Yet, that information appears nowhere on the return that I can think of, certainly not on the 1040 itself. The date of birth is information that the program uses in completing the return, for example, in figuring the standard deduction.

Married persons can choose between Married, Filing Jointly and Married, Filing Separately for their filing status. There are three scenarios in which MFS may play out:

1. Both spouses are filing a return and itemizing deductions.

1. Both spouses are filing a return and using the standard deduction.

2. Only one spouse is filing.

For reasons known only to the programmers of this software, they have evidently decided to present this choice to you during the phase of prep where you're selecting filing status. I've never seen software deal with the issue this way, but all software deals with it some way, usually with some sort of check mark to override the software's automatic selection of the better deduction method. The end result is the same.

If you want to know why they appoached it the way they did, you'll have to ask the programmers.

That's awesome. At least it shows that there is an exception. I think it fits my situation. That middle sentence still confuses me, as I wonder about whether I understand English at all. (g) But my biggest frustration is fixed. Thanks to all.