Filing Status Different Between Federal and State

[BarryS]

I am recently retired and live in New Hampshire, with no state income tax. My wife is still working and employed in Massachusetts which has state income tax. We have filed MFJ with the Federal return. Since I am no longer employed in Mass myself,  do I still need to file jointly on the Mass return or can I file MFS for my wife's return since my SSA income is not Mass based?

[LeonardS]

Yes, Massachusetts will allow you to file separately when you have filed married filing jointly on your federal return.

[BarryS]

Thank you for the answer. This is good to know and definitely worth it for me to look into. But as a follow up how is this done? When I start my Mass State Return, it automatically imports the data from my Federal Return including the status, Married Filing Jointly. There does not appear to be an option in the process to change the Mass Return filing status. Do I have to go in an make a manual change and remove all of my imported income info?

[MayaD · Accepted solution]

Please follow the instructions in the link below :

How do I prepare a joint federal return and separate state returns?