Married and filing jointly vs married and filing separately?

[tampagoods]

We take standard deductions and wife made 227,778.00 and I made 63,000.00.  We are getting killed on taxes because earned income is over 250k.  I'm trying to see if filing married and separately but it keeps asking me about questions about my two dependents as if I'm separated or divorced.

[RichardG · Accepted solution]

It's rarely beneficial to file as married, separate, but it never hurts to run the numbers.  If you claimed dependents, then yes, TurboTax asks several questions about the children to determine if they qualify as dependents.  This is especially true when you have elected married, separate returns.  Instead of changing your entries in TurboTax, I suggest using our TaxCaster to run your simulations.  https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/calculators/taxcaster/