Tax Question: Married filing Separately.....

[JKMastalski]

Question for you Tax Pro's.... If I file Married Filing Separately, what happens with the itemized deductions???? I am so confused about this. When I worked on my DH's taxes, I put in Itemized Deductions, which was only our Mortage Interest and our Real Estate Taxes. It worked out to be about $11,000.
Now, when I go to do my Taxes, do I also claim that stuff and have the $11,000 or do I just put 0's in there??? I am so confused! For some reason, It seemed like we were getting alot more $$$ back by doing it separately. Thanks very much!

 

[luvmy2sams]

Married filing separately usually isn't the best option for married couples, but there are exceptions. Each person should claim the portion of itemized expenses they paid with their individual funds. For example, if you had mortage interest of $5000 for the year, and each of you paid $2500, you would each claim $2500 on Schedule A. If the expenses were paid by communal funds, the payments should only be claimed on one person's Schedule A. In your case, that means you'd enter zeroes since it was claimed on your DH's return. Keep in mind that there are many expenses that can't be claimed by married filing jointly, i.e. child care expenses and tuition deductions. Also remember that you must itemize when your husband itemizes. In other words you can't claim the standard deduction when your spouse itemizes.

Happy filing! I'm so glad we're done.

 

[tkd lisa]

I'm going to be finding this out soon.

I have to file this way. Luckily, we had sold our house in Oct 04, and the one I bought here was with my money only, so the interest deduction doesn't count.

Soon to be ex cashed in all his retirement accounts, so he'll be taking a huge tax bite. Not sharing in that. No way... no how. I didn't have a say in it, so I'm not paying for it!

As far as children deductions, I'm taking one child and their child care costs, and "giving" him the other to use. I'm taking the church donations, since I'm the one who made them.

As far as I could tell, your total deductions should add up the same, however you divide them.

I'm having an accountant do it just so that I'm sure I'm doing it right though.