I recently received a Notice to Assess from MA Dept of Revenue for year 2005. I realized the mistake I made on my state taxes. To correct I will have to refile federal and state taxes with my status changed from Married Filing Joint to Married Filing Single.

My question is can I re-file for federal and state return with new status?

Normally, you will file amended tax return if you are amending your filing status. But if you filed joint return, you can not amend it to file separate returns.

So more info is needed.

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Originally Posted by MukatA

Normally, you will file amended tax return if you are amending your filing status. But if you filed joint return, you can not amend it to file separate returns.

So more info is needed.

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Thanks. Here is more info.

My girlfriend and I got married in December of 2005. She lived in Florida at the time and I lived in MA. Since Florida does not have state taxes only federal taxes were withheld in her case.

We filed jointly for that year. The mistake I did was that when filing MA tax return I only reported my wages and so paid less tax. Now I have a notice to assess and am being asked to pay more tax + interest.

So my question is, if we had filed separately for that year and showed two separate residences would we have to pay taxes in MA on her income from Florida? I am thinking of refiling both federal and state with 'married filing separately' status.

MukatA is correct: Once you file jointly, it is an IRREVOCABLE decision; you cannot amend to file Married Filing Separately unless your original joint return was itself an illegal return, which it was not.

That said, you should NOT have to pay taxes on her income earned in Florida because you were only married for one month in 2005.

Contact the Massachusetts tax department and explain this. You will probably have to provide a certified copy of the marriage certificate, but once that is done, Massachusetts should change its position.

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Originally Posted by AtlantaTaxExpert

MukatA is correct: Once you file jointly, it is an IRREVOCABLE decision; you cannot amend to file Married Filing Separately unless your original joint return was itself an illegal return, which it was not.

That said, you should NOT have to pay taxes on her income earned in Florida because you were only married for one month in 2005.

Contact the Massachusetts tax department and explain this. You will probably have to provide a certified copy of the marriage certificate, but once that is done, Massachusetts should change its position.

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I can certainly call them and explain that we were only married for a month. I hope that works. Thanks for the advice.