Living separately for half the year, then moved together. Filing advice

[doctaxquestion]

Hi

My wife and I were separated because of training and lived apart (MN for me, OH for her) until June 2019. Beginning July, we both moved to IL and we are still here for now. How should we file our taxes?

Until last year, because we each had full years in our states MN and OH respectively, we were able to follow this approach, i.e. MFJ for Federal, and MFS using mock federal returns for our respective states. Not sure how to do it this year.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/1901214-how-do-i-prepare-a-joint-federal-return-and-sepa[product k...

[NCperson]

just answer the questions in TT related to when you moved; TT will figure it out from there.  You'll need to file in all 3 states 

[doctaxquestion]

Thanks. Hopefully, TT takes into account the fact that we were not together for the first half of the year so that she is not paying tax in MN on her income earned in OH by us filing jointly. The year prior to that, when we were tax residents of separate states on December 31, 2018, we did a joint federal return, but married filing separately returns for our respective states.

[NCperson]

TT will ask EACH of you when you moved out of the state.....

[doctaxquestion]

So I tried this, but TT is combining mine (MN) and hers (OH) income as MN income for both of us on the state tax return….

[NCperson]

but look closely..... is MN giving you a credit for the taxes paid to OH and IL? They tax you as if you were a resident for the whole year and then you give a credit for the tax you paid another state so you are not paying tax to two states on the same dollar.  

I just looked at the MN form and it begins with the Federal AGI so yes, it is combining all your income. But then it makes adjustments on Line 13 for part year and non residents - this is where you should see a credit for what was paid to OH and IL.

[doctaxquestion]

Can I choose to file IL as MFJ and do part year state returns for our individual states as MFS (using mock Federal return generation for those states?)

[DMarkM1]

Yes, exactly as you describe.  You can file MFJ part-year IL and MFS part-year MN and part-year OH using mock federal returns on the desktop version of TurboTax.