Community Property

[Thbs]

I now live in Arizona, a community property state.  My spouse lives in Ohio.  We file MFS.   This is my first year filing as an Arizona resident.   On my Arizona return, TurboTax (desktop) has my spouse as living with me.  Is this the correct way to file?

Also when I was doing the state review, TurboTax asked several questions about community property.  I had to close the program and now cannot get these questions (which may be helpful) back.  Any suggestions?

[MarilynG1]

In FORMS mode, you can verify that your Filing Status is MFS, on the Arizona Info Worksheet. You will give your spouse's Name/SSN, but not their address.

It doesn't matter whether or not your spouse lives with you, if you are Married Filing Separately.  Here's more info from Arizona Dept. of Revenue. 

Begin by completing a MFS federal tax return for you and your spouse, as you'll need the amounts for different income categories, tax amounts, and all tax payments for each of you. If one of you plans to itemize deductions, the other person must itemize as well. Otherwise, you'll both have to use the Standard Deduction.

The IRS suggests married couples in community property states look at their tax situation under both joint and separate filing options to determine which version saves them the most (TurboTax will do this for you).  Filing a joint return may be less complex and qualify you for tax credits. 

Here's more detailed info on Filing Separately in a Community Property State.

@Thbs