Can we both exclude our share of the $10,200/individual tax exemption if only one of us had unemployment compensation ?

[scottulves]

Unemployment Compensation Taxation for a Married Couple...

We are married in a community property state filing jointly and our AGI is less than $150k.  Since we live in a community property state, CA, can we both exclude our share of the $10,200/individual tax exemption if only one of us had unemployment compensation since her benefit is considered community property and split equally between us? Note - I was not unemployed. Your thoughts?


If you file a Married Filing Joint return, when completing the worksheet, you should report half of your unemployment compensation and half of your spouse's unemployment compensation on line 8 of the worksheet and your spouse reports the other half of your unemployment compensation and half of his or her unemployment compensation on line 9 of the worksheet. If your joint modified AGI is less than $150,000, you and your spouse can exclude up to $10,200 each. Do not exclude more than the amount of unemployment compensation you report on your Schedule 1, Line 7.

[GeorgeDenseff]

I see what you are reading here, but to exclude $10,200 each, each of you would need to have had $10,200 in unemployment benefits.

[Critter-3]

Ok ... in a community prop state you enter 1/2 of the unemployment  in each person's column no matter how much each person got and this is weird this year because each person can exclude up to $10,200 each.

For instance ...  taxpayer only had $20K of unemployment so  $10K goes into each person's column.  Now each person can exclude the entire $10K so none of the unemployment is taxed on the return.

However in a NON community property state the taxpayers gets the short end of the stick if only one person had unemployment then the max excluded is $10,400.... using the same example only taxpayer had unemployment of $20K less the  excluded amount then $9600 is still taxable.