You may find the same benefits this year with filing separately. With your income level and since you do not have kids, this may produce the best results for a while. If you were to have kids, this may change.
If you file jointly, depending on if you have a mortgage with interest, and have made a lot of charitable contributions it MAY help with your return, but I would guess itemizing will not help as your MFJ standard deduction is $27,700.
Your state and local tax deduction is capped at $10,000.
If you paid mortgage interest of $10,000, then you would be at $20,000 between the two, which is $7,000 less than your standard deduction.
Medical expenses would only be deductible for the amount you paid over $16,500 as only expenses over 7.5% of your AGI are deductible.
If you file separately and one of you itemize, then both of you must itemize. So it would not create a better situation filing separate if you both itemize as you would still have the same expenses, just split between the returns and you would still each need to have more than the MFS standard deduction of $13,850.
Your income is above the limit for the Lifetime Learning Credit. The limit is $180,000 for education credits so you would not be able to claim an education credit for your grad school expenses. If you are paying student loans, you would be able to take a deduction for your Student Loan Interest paid, that is capped at $2,500 but only reduces your income so it would not reduce your tax by $2,500, more like a few hundred. So, if you filed separately based on your joint income, you would not be losing much as far as credits.
Standard versus Itemized Deduction
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