Which version of federal return to submit with state return?

KnnNike · ‎March 1, 2020

We had a bit of a complicated tax situation this year...I lived all year in Michigan, and my wife moved from Virginia partway through. Because of this, TurboTax recommended that we file MFJ for federal and for Michigan, and that my wife file MFS for Virginia.

For the Virginia MFS return, we had to create a dummy federal return and *not* file it, per TurboTax's instruction. However, the state return PDF that the software outputs also contains a copy of this dummy federal return.

My question is this: the instructions say that I should include a copy of my federal return with my VA state return...I'm guessing I should swap out the dummy MFS federal return with the actual MFJ federal return that we filed? It seems like the answer to this is a fairly straightforward 'yes', but I also don't know why TurboTax wouldn't mention anything about this [seemingly very important] step.

AlanT222 · ‎March 1, 2020

It is always best to submit the actual Federal income tax return you filed with the IRS. Not ever wise to submit a "dummy" Federal income tax return to the State.

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KnnNike · ‎March 2, 2020

In this case, I think there's a significant issue with TurboTax here that needs to be corrected. TT continually sells itself as a "one and done" solution to tax prep; if you're filing your tax return by mail, there are a number of places where it strongly suggests that you just need to print out the return, follow the instructions on the cover page, and you're done...easy peasy.

Except the federal return that TurboTax packages with the MFS state return is the dummy one. The software recognizes the MFJ/MFS federal/state issue in other areas; heck there's an entire website devoted to explaining the procedure. But nowhere does it say that you need to swap out the dummy federal return with the MFJ one if when submitting your state return. Someone not paying attention could easily miss this, and if I were to e-file my state return, the incorrect federal return would've been sent automatically...