Hello

My husband worked in NY until Aug 2009, and then moved to Virginia.
I have been working and staying in Maryland in 2009 . We have 2 separate apartment leases in each state. I need to file taxes and have a question.
Can we file using head of household status?

Thanks for your time.

ASR

No you can not file as head of household. File as married filing jointly or married filing separately.

On joint return, for Maryland return you are resident of Maryland and report all your income. Your spouse is nonresident and does not have any Maryland income.

For NY, your spouse is resident and spouse must report all his income. Claim credit for any taxes paid to Virginia. You are non resident and do not have NY income.

Virginia, your spouse is part year resident and you are nonresident. Your spouse will report income earned while in Virginia. Your U.S. Tax Return: Working or Living in Two or More states (http://taxipay.blogspot.com/2008/06/working-in-two-or-more-states.html)

If you never lived in NY yourself in 2009, and if you have no NY source income, then your husband can file a part-year resident return for NY as Married Filing Separately (MFS), even though you may be filing as Married Filing Jointly for your federal return. This elliminates the need to report your income on his NY return. Same thing with VA. And if your husband never lived in MD and has no MD income, then you can file as MFS on your VA return.

Thank you for the response. I read in an article about being considered unmarried, when living apart for more than 6 months, which is one of the criteria for head of household. Is this not applicable in our case?
Also are there tax filing services that are offered via this website?
Thanks for your time.

Thanks
ASR

Yes you can file as HoH, if you lived apart for at least the last 6 months of 2009, and if you have a qualifying dependent living with you. Keep in mind that if you file this way he will be forced to file as Married Filing Separately, and can not claim the dependent(s) that you claim. Of course I don't know your personal situation, but the two of you would most likely be better off from a tax perspective filing as Married Filing Jointly rather than doing as you suggest.

Thanks for the responses.
So will I be able to file jointly on Federal Return, and then do married filing separately in Maryland, Virginia & NY? Is it possible to file separately in different states, thought I file jointly on Federal?
Can I do this using Taxact/Turbotax (or any other online tax filing services)? I could not see such options to select each person's filing status, for each State in Taxact. There's only one option which gets applied to the Federal filing status.
Or will I have to do only paper filing? Or do I have to get it done at a tax filing office?
Also who is the primary taxpayer? How is this decided?

Thanks very much
ASR

Yes - file as Married Filing Jointly on the federal return, and married filing separetely on each of the state returns.

I don't know how Taxact or TurboTax handles this - sorry. Perhaps in the initial interview the programs ask for each person's state of residency? I sugest you call the help desk and ask. Alternatively you may be able to go online to the web site for each state and complete your state tax returns that way. And sure - you can always go to a professional for help.

The primary taxpayer on a joint return is the one whose SS number gets printed at the top of the return. It doesn't matter which of you is designated as "primary."

Thanks so much for the clarification , So this means that - for the state that I worked in - I must file with status as full year resident & file separately.
My spouse will have to file part year resident in those states that he worked. Do I have to file any returns in his state, even though I did not work in that state ? Or do we file & send the tax returns only to the respective states where each worked & lived?

Thanks very much
ASR

Thanks so much for the clarification , So this means that - for the state that I worked in - I must file with status as full year resident & file separately.

Yes.



My spouse will have to file part year resident in those states that he worked. Do I have to file any returns in his state, even though I did not work in that state ?

No - that's the whole point of what I was getting at in the earlier posts. If he files as MFS he reports only his income, not yours. And you have no need to file in NY nor VA since you never worked nor lived in either of those states.


Or do we file & send the tax returns only to the respective states where each worked & lived?


Right.

Thanks so much! Sorry if I was repeating myself, but I wanted to clarify before I actually send out the documents. You have been extremely helpful.

Thanks :)
ASR