Thanks for taking the time to write out these detailed instructions. This is the most thorough response I've seen here or elsewhere. Hopefully others can benefit from this as well. That said, I am not sure whether I need to do Form 2210 to determine spousal allocations of joint estimated tax payments, as both me and my wife figure out estimated tax based on our individually projected income/deductions, and as our refund in the what-if worksheet was fairly balanced when viewed as married filing separate. On the other hand we may NEED to do 2210 just to get the Turbo Tax program to allocate according to our wishes - which is my basic problem. I would think the credit-elect can be allocated in the same way as the quarterly payments - I guess I will find out!
The observation about the IRS figuring the unemployment tax rebate for you would seem to apply to returns that have already been filed - although this could be picked up if for some reason it is not picked up during our contemporaneous filing. My understanding is that Turbo Tax will deal with this in the Federal Review portion of the return (so that would require use of the STEP-by-Step interview for this alone, anyway.
Not pleased about Congress changing the rules in the middle of the filing season, although the benefits may outstrip the inconvenience re filing. In any case, I appreciate the detailed instructions!!! Interesting, my home state of PA has a form that can be e-filed that seamlessly reallocates joint payments if filing married filing separate, based merely on preference (one can do the equivalent of F2210 as well).
Will let you know how it goes. I'm actually still thinking whether married separate is a good idea for one reason alone- any benefit from the larger unemployment tax rebate (via use of the $150,000 ceiling for each of us separately) would be substantially eclipsed by the stiff penalty Medicare would apply in 2022 (which is based on tax year 2020 income). Married separate gets slammed once you get to a certain level of modified Adjusted Gross Income, for the purpose of determining annual payments.
