Claiming dependents on mock federal returns when creating separate state returns.

[Ken118]

My wife and I live and work in different states. We have 3 children that we claim on our married filing joint federal return. When making up our mock married filing separately returns to create our individual state returns do I claim our children on both mock returns for each of us or only on one of them since these are only being used to create the 2 state returns. 

[rjs]

Each child can only be claimed on one return - either yours or your wife's. You don't have to put all the children on one return. You can put two on one return and one on the other return. But you can't claim the same child on both your return and your wife's return.