Businesses that are owned by a married couple can be treated as a qualified joint venture. Qualified joint ventures will file one schedule C for each spouse owner, and report each spouses' portion of income and expenses.
Here are
the requirements to file your business tax information as a qualified joint
venture.
Partnerships
(or LLCs in community property states) with husband and wife owners can file
schedule Cs for each of their portions of the partnership’s income instead of
filing a Form 1065 partnership return by electing to be treated as a qualified
joint venture. The requirements are as follows:
- The business is unincorporated
or not organized as a limited liability company (unless the husband and
wife live in a community property state).
- The only owners of the business
are the husband and wife.
- Both spouses materially
participate in the business operations.
- Both spouses agree and elect
not to file their tax return as a partnership.
- Each spouse reports their full
share of income and expenses on separate schedule Cs.
You will need to divide the income and each expense by your respective ownership share. If you live in a community property state, the ownership will be 50%. If the ownership shares are 50/50, you will enter the exact same income and expense items on each schedule C. If there is business mileage, you will divide the mileage between each schedule C as well.
