@lotoftaxes123 Yes, for 1) enter both of John and Jill's W2s in EACH spouse's return. For 2) you only divide by 50% if 100% of your residency for 2023 was spent in community property states. It gets a bit involved if one or both of you resided in a non-community property state for either all or part of the year, but since you didn't mention it, I am assuming 100% of your time was in community property states, so yes, 50% for box 1 and box 2, AND ALSO do that for the state income and witholding. 3) Correct. 4) This is true for those that can be divided. IRS rules for certain credits and deductions can only be claimed by 1 spouse, such as the EV credit.
Question 1 - Yes leave that blank. This appears to be for dividing income not addressed on W2s or other common income forms.
Question 2 - No, it's not completely automatic. When dividing W2 income in this section, you have to enter your spouse's portion in the spouse column and make sure the total equals what is on the original (100%) amount on the W2.
Question 3 - When entering the state return info, each state is different but you will be asked questions regarding allocation of income. Just make sure that it is allocating the same as the Fed return. I don't know the answer about filing manually since I filed electronically, but if you do this correctly there should be no need to file paper. All my returns were accepted, processed, approved, and payments/refunds completed.
Hope this helps.
