Home in NY live and work in VA

[jammalg]

My wife and I have a home in upstate NY.  In 2018 I moved to VA to work and have been here for all of 2019 except mayve 14 days when I went to our  NY home.  My wife's wages are from NY. My wages are from VA.  Turbo Tax says we should file our Fed Taxes married filing jointly. I'm told I should file my VA state tax as married filing separate.

1) does this sound right?

If this does make sense - do we e-file our fed tax but then I mail in my VA state tax while my wife mails in her NY state tax?

I've never heard of doing anything like this before so I'm definitely nervous about the whole thing.

Thanks for the info,

Jim

[JotikaT2]

It depends.

Assuming you are living in Virginia and she is residing in New York, then yes, it would make more sense to file your federal return as Married Filing Joint to ensure you get the most tax breaks, but then filing separately for state based upon your states of residency and sources of income from each state. 

Both state returns would need to be mailed in.

For New York, please see the following link for more instructions.  You can file using the Married Filing Separately status as you did not reside in New York for the entire year.

New York filing status

For Virginia, you can also file separately.  Please see the attached link for more information on this state.

Virginia filing status

Please see the attached link for instructions on how to prepare your state returns.

How to File MFJ for Federal but separately for state