My wife is a resident of NY and all of her income is from NY. I am a resident of GA and all of my income is from GA. If we are filing federal income tax married filing jointly, how do I file the state tax. I am using turbotax and its combining both NY and GA incomes for my GA tax return and will not let me change it to just my income which is the only income earned in GA?

1) Is this correct or is there something wrong with the software?
2) Do we have to show our combined income on each state taxe?
3) I have heard people say it is better to file married filing jointly but for our case I feel married filing separately makes more sense. Any recommendations?

Thanks for your time!

Both NY and GA allow you to file as Married Filing Separately even though you filed as Married Filing Jointly, as long as the non-resident spouse has no income from that state. If TT isn't allowing you to do that I can only guess that perhaps you didn't complete the personal interview section properly.

Alternatively, if it's allowing your wife to file as MFS for NY but is insisting you file as MFJ for GA, then one option would be to file as MFJ for GA and take the credit for taxes paid to other jurisdictions. Under this approach you do have to report all joint income to GA, but the credit essentially undoes any tax calculation based on her NY source income.

Thanks!

MFJ means you pay less tax. If Turbotax isn't sophisticated enough for your situation, go to a human tax preparer or do it yourself with one of the excellent books out there. You'll save a lot more than the cost of Turbotax. BTW, if either of the states are community property states, then the state can tax half of the other spouse's income. Not a tax attorney so I don't know about NY and GA, but - there are about a million good books out there.

Unfortunately this question is 14 months old and relates to NY and GA.