Can a Pennsylvania widow file jointly for year spouse died?

rev. 3/13/2017

I'm sorry for your loss.

Pennsylvania does not allow a joint return when the primary taxpayer is deceased and the secondary (spouse) taxpayer is alive.  Since your father died in 2016, your mother can file a joint federal return, but will have to prepare separate returns for Pennsylvania.  [If the situation were reversed, you would be able to file a joint PA return.]

In order to file a joint return, the surviving spouse has to be listed as the PRIMARY taxpayer on the return.  List your mother as the taxpayer and your father as the spouse.  Then you should have no problem.

Thanks for your condolences.  First, I am using the 2016 Turbotax Premier CD version already.  Second, Pennsylvania absolutely does allow a joint return to be filed when one or both spouses are deceased.  Only Turbotax seems to not allow this which is why I posted my question.  From the PA-40 Instructions, "If a joint return is filed and the taxpayer, spouse or both are deceased, complete the married filing joint oval, the deceased oval and the spouse and/or taxpayer ovals as well as the date(s) of death. The surviving spouse should complete the name and Social Security number section of the return as the primary taxpayer on the return."  Any other suggestions?

The surviving spouse has to be listed as the PRIMARY taxpayer on the return.  List your mother as the taxpayer and your father as the spouse.  Then you should have no problem.

That did the trick.  Thank you very much!

My accountant says that you can file a joint return with a deceased spouse in Pennsylvania.  The surviving spouse has to be listed first, but my accountant says Pennsylvania rarely complains if the spouses are in the wrong order.  Turbotax has two bugs.  1.  Not allowing the joint return with a deceased spouse.  2.  Not allowing you to reverse the order of taxpayer and spouse.  I found a work around for Number 1.  I brought my Father back to life for an hour by changing his status on the Federal return from dead to alive.  Then Turbotax was able to prepare a joint Pennsylvania return.  I used a pen to mark up the printed Pennsylvania return, and indicated that my Father was deceased and added a date of death.  We will see if this works.  You can probably change the order of the spouses by playing with the personal area of the Federal return, but I was too far along to bother.  Get rid of one taxpayer then add them back in.

Thanks for your response.  That was good thinking on your part, temporarily entering your father as living so that the PA joint return would be filled out correctly by Turbotax.  I didn't see a way to change the order of the taxpayers in the personal area of the Federal return.  I wound up starting a new form and entering my mother as the primary tax payer.  Lucky for me, their tax situation is not very complicated and it didn't take too long.

I'm having the same problem. My husband died and this is my first time doing the taxes. PA instructions said to change the order of the primary filer to surviving spouse, but Turbo Tax won't let me.  It wants me to file separately.  That would be too much work.  Also Turbo Tax did not 'remember' that in PA retirement income is not taxable. I haven't tried to fix that yet, since I can't get past the filing status.

You need to go the the Personal Info tab and enter your INFO in the first section (as the taxpayer) and then enter your husbands info in the spouse section.

Agree with previous comment. Here's more info.

TurboTax is wrong when it says: "Pennsylvania does not allow a joint return when the primary taxpayer is deceased and tge secondary (spouse) taxperyer is alive. Since <Taxpayer First Name> died in 2019, <Spouse First Name> can file a joint federal return, but will need to prepare separate returns for Pennsylvania".

As previous commenter said, go into Personal Info. Tip: If you try to change the name of the Taxpayer first and both parties have the same surname, TurboTax will squawk that both parties have the same first and last name. Instead:

(1)  Change the first name of the Spouse to a third (placeholder) name.

(2) Change the first name of the Taxpayer to what your previously had for the Spouse.

(3)  Go back to the placeholder name for the Spouse and change it to what you previously had as the first name for the Taxpayer.

I have followed the advice that others have posted and was successfully able to reverse the order of my parents on the tax form (putting my mother as the primary taxpayer and my deceased father as the spouse).  However, I'm continuing to get the error message when I attempt to file a joint PA return (even when I changed the status of my father, bringing him back to "life").

Anyone have any other suggestions?

I just paid $45 for the extra PA TurboTax State and am hoping I can get my money back if it will not allow me to complete a (legitimate)  joint PA return. 

It depends.

Please comment with the error message you are getting so we can assist you further.

My husband died in April 2019.  After his death I returned to working full time.  He was listed as the primary taxpayer on our 2019 joint federal return and in accordance with the advice in this thread I reversed the personal info and made myself the primary taxpayer for the PA state return.  Now TurboTax is objecting because the Employee SSN on my W-2 info does not match the SSN of the spouse specified in Personal Info.  What do I need to do?

When you change the primary and secondary taxpayer, you need to go in and also change who the W2 is for.  If you originally had it as spouse, you will want to change it to taxpayer.  

Just changing the information is the personal information area is not sufficient.  

I'm sorry, but how do I change it?  The only option I have to do with W-2s is edit the amount taxable in PA.

Did you find a way to access the joint filing forms?

I am having the same problem.

@eambrown As awesome TurboTax Alumni @IreneS said, to file a joint Pennsylvania tax return as a surviving spouse, you have to put yourself first on the tax return and your husband second.

Go to Personal Info, edit your husband and replace his information with yours. Then edit your info and replace it with his.

You may have to change the ownership of any W-2s, 1099s and other forms in your return so they match the new order. Once you switch the order in personal info everything else will be reversed.

There is a PA income form on the left side in the Forms view with a column to change that shows whose income it is, T=Taxpayer and S=Spouse.

We did all that and are facing an eFile Pin error that is a show stopper.   It stays red and won't let us eFile.  Had to make him alive again to make him the secondary taxpayer, change  info worksheets and individual income worksheets, and Federal and PA income ownership,  Still blocks the eFile. 

Call to a help desk person who said we must use widow's PIN from last year for it to work.  Really? So we dug that out, still no luck.  Was about to start over tonight, but will try deleting and re adding him as spouse.  Hoping the tip to delete a person and add them back in will work.                 

OTHER WRINKLE IS THAT HE HAD TO ENTER an IRS PIN after his identity was stolen, but when we forgot, it was just an rejection code by the IRS after sending it.   There is a place to enter it next to the 1040 form signature, but we are wondering if that will be necessary.

I have a similar issue for tax year 2022. My father dies in early summer. My mother survives. The Federal Return on Turbo Tax deluxe let me do a joint return for both of them, but the state part would not let me..said I had to do separate returns...but the PA department of Revenue directly says I can do a joint return,,,so what is wrong with the Turbo Tax programming or how do I get around it?

I'm very sorry for your loss.  For Pennsylvania, the surviving spouse has to be listed as the primary on the tax return.  Ensure your Mother is listed as the account holder and your father is listed as the spouse.  If you make the correction and are still having issues, respond to this thread.

@macdaddy100111 

So do I change the taxpayer status in the Federal part of Turbo Tax before the State return will allow me to continue? or do I just go into the state part and change it there?  I imported last years data from when my father was still alive before I stared.

No.  Make the changes in the federal interview.  First in "My Info" and then in the "Wages and Income" section being sure the income sources match the correct recipient.  Then you will be able to continue the PA state interview and file a joint return.   

It may even be helpful to not mark your father as deceased in the "My Info" section initially.  Go through all the order changes in the interviews and then go back to "My Info" and select the button indicating "Spouse died before filing."  

I am sorry to bother but this is the most similar thread i have found.

essentially, we were in this situation in 2021.. with a few complications, but we did it wrong. we kepy my deceased father first, filed, payed, and are told we dont owe anything, but my mom needs to file.

we eventually were able to get mypath working but, asking how to proceed we were sort of just told for her to file.

my question is how best to proceed at this point? can we file a pa 40 with a bunch of 0s for her as we already claimed all of their income on the joint? do we file again or amended with the same numbers but the names reversed and some form that says we paid and transfer the money to her? its probably not as complicated as were making it but were just unsure how to best proceed. 

there are probably more things that can be said but i think that is the most relevant i can remember. we need to file, im just not sure how to do it and dont want to cause more issues or pa thinking income was double it was or something. 

(probably irrelevant, but minor complications was they were done as eventually filed, wrong it turns out, but mom got nervous because things were more complicated and after hours of trying to file an extension, i thought we had one for her, but there was a pin issue that came back, so the taxes were filed late, but the late fee and everything is paid)

hello we might know where our issue went wrong, and i type here because something may have changed.

i do not have confirmation that i know what is wrong, but i am led to believe that my deceased father could have been  the primary on the pa40.

our issue, and its not confirmed but it sure seems to make sense, is that turbotax seems to have removed my moms name from the pa40 and both me and her managed to miss it. her social is still on the top, joint is still marked, deceased is marked, somehow Ive been driving tax people crazy for weeks and it wasnt till i was just now told that filing under my father as primary is fine (if i dont misunderstand) that i went back and finally saw that her name is not on the pdfs i have saved. also i havent fully tried all means but at least on the pdf and what ive tried so far i cant type it in, but more ways left to try.

dont listen to me, there are real tax people here, but if im understanding right, this could affect others


edit: yeah, as far as i can understand, gettingan email about generics, not specifics from a local tax office "In general terms, a couple can file jointly and just indicate on the PA-40 that the taxpayer (meaning the primary) has passed. The Department of Revenue will process the return for that year and the surviving spouse can then file single for the follow years" andas faras i can tell, going back into turbotax 2021, it isnot letting me add in my  mothers or any secondary  name