How do I enter prior year tax refunds for a newly married filing joint this year if one itemized last year and one used standard deduction last year?

[jonigibbs]

newly married in 2016 filing joint; both have state tax refunds but one filed itemized and one filed standard deduction in 2015.  Do I have to report both on the 2016 joint return?

[Hank-P]

TurboTax does not provide the option to select information on each one individually. If you enter more than one state refund, it just adds them together. It just asks once after all the refunds have been entered. There is only one State and Local Income Tax Refund Worksheet, so there is no way to do the calculation separately for the taxpayer and spouse. The help for the worksheet even says that a change in marital status from last year is one of the situations it does not handle.

So either.....

• If you both itemized deductions last year then add them together and enter it.
  
• If you both took the standard deduction last year add them together and enter it.
  
• If one person took itemized deductions and the other one took the standard deduction then only enter the one that itemized deductions.