My husband and I live together but filing separately. Our kids lived with us in the same house. I'm not sure how to answer "Did your son live with you for the whole year"

[DoninGA]

Answer Yes if the child lived with you for the whole year.

When filing separately only one of you can claim the child as a dependent.  The other parent does not enter the child on their tax return at all.

Note - There are many take-aways when filing separately versus jointly- https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/taxation/better-married-couple-file-join...

When you file separately, your tax rate is higher and you won't be able to claim:

• Education benefits
• Earned Income Credit (EIC)
• Child and Dependent Care Credit (usually)
• Adoption Credit (usually)
• The standard deduction if your spouse is claiming itemized deductions
• The full benefit for itemized deductions, the Child Tax Credit, and capital losses (you'll get only half compared to married filing jointly)

If you file separately and live in Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, or Wisconsin, you have to deal with community property allocations and adjustments, which adds extra work and complexity to your taxes.

[xmasbaby0]

The same child cannot be claimed by each of you.   Only one of you can claim the child, so the child should not even be listed on one of your returns.

May I ask why you are filing separate returns--especially if you have a child?  You may be losing important child-related credits.  When you file MFS you lose the earned income credit, childcare credit and have to use a lower amount toward getting the refundable portion of the child tax credit.  If your child is in college you lose the education credit.

If you were legally married at the end of 2022 your filing choices are married filing jointly or married filing separately.

Married Filing Jointly is usually better, even if one spouse had little or no income. When you file a joint return, you and your spouse will get the married filing jointly standard deduction of $25,900 (+$1400 for each spouse 65 or older)  You are eligible for more credits including education credits, earned income credit, child and dependent care credit, and a larger income limit to receive the child tax credit. 

If you choose to file married filing separately, both spouses have to file the same way—either you both itemize or you both use standard deduction. Your tax rate will be higher than on a joint return. Some of the special rules for filing separately include: you cannot get earned income credit, education credits, adoption credits, or deductions for student loan interest. A higher percent of your Social Security benefits may be taxable. Your limit for SALT (state and local taxes and sales tax) will be only $5000 per spouse. In many cases you will not be able to take the child and dependent care credit. The amount you can contribute to a retirement account will be affected. If you live in a community property state, you will be required to provide additional information regarding your spouse’s income. ( Community property states:  AZ, CA, ID, LA, NV, NM, TX, WA, WI)

 If  you are using online TurboTax to prepare your returns, you will need to prepare two separate returns and pay twice.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1894449-married-filing-jointly-vs-married-filing-separately

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1901162-married-filing-separately-in-community-property-states

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1894449-is-it-better-for-a-married-couple-to-file-jointly-or-separ...

[trpooler]

So tell me if I'm wrong, but my wife and I file separately because I owe $89,000 in student loans.  If I just use my income (meaning we have to file separately) then I qualify for the SAVE plan and with my income my payment falls to a manageable 200 bucks a month.  If I use both mine and my wife's income(meaning filing jointly), then I no longer qualify for the SAVE plan and my payment jumps to over $960 a month!  My wife makes slightly more than I do but not enough for the both of us to float nearly $1000 bucks a month.  The difference here is about $9120 dollars a year.  I'm not a tax guru but I doubt we qualify for any sort of credit filing jointly that would net us over that.

[Mike9241]

MFS you lose the deduction for student loan interest, the earned income credit, education tax credits, credit for child and dependent care expenses, retirement contributions may be limited, dependent tax credit may be reduced.

an extreme example would be if you had 3 kids and qualified for the maximum earned income credit which would be over $7400. that with other lost deductions and credits could well exceed the extra money you would have to pay on the loan. Also, when you're old enough to start drawing social security 85% (the maximum amount taxable) is automatically taxed even if your combined incomes would result in a lower % being taxed. 

you both must use either the standard deduction or itemized deductions. 

there is no way for us to know whether MFS is better than joint in your situation. you would need to prepare 3 returns. one MFS for each of you and one Joint. Not really feasible with online, but you can do as many rturns as you want with any of the desktop versions for a single fee.