topic My spouse and I each bought a home in 2021 and live separately. How do we show the 2 homes? in Deductions & credits

My spouse and I each bought a home in 2021 and live separately. How do we show the 2 homes?

gailcsc18 — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 04:35:45 GMT

We are not legally separated and are married, filing jointly. Can we have 2 primary residences and show deductions for both? We each have a mortgage and are not co-owners.

Re: My spouse and I each bought a home in 2021 and live separately. How do we show the 2 homes?

rjs — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 01:14:23 GMT

You are allowed to deduct mortgage interest on two homes. Normally it's your main home and a second home, but I'm sure that deducting the mortgage interest on your two separate homes on a joint return is okay.

You can deduct real estate tax on any homes that you own in the United States, so deducting the tax on two homes is not a problem.

Re: My spouse and I each bought a home in 2021 and live separately. How do we show the 2 homes?

LeonardS — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 01:24:04 GMT

No, you may not have two primary residences at the same time. You are filing jointly so you may consider one home as the primary home and the other as a second home. The IRS allows the same deductions for a second home as the primary home. Since you are filing jointly you will combine your deductions and report the combined amount for each deductible item as one entry. You may experience a cap on your mortgage interest deduction, for 2021 interest is deductible on only the first $750,000, also the maximum amount of taxes paid is limited to $10,000 in state and local sales, income, and property taxes.

Edited [02/28/2022 | 5:23 PM PST]

@gailcsc18