Splitting mortgage interest income as two single filers

[revilo90]

My fiancé and I bought a home in 2024 and are filing single. We are both on the title and loan.

I paid the down payment out of an account in my name. Shortly after purchasing, we combined our finances. Both of our paychecks go into a joint account and the mortgage payment comes out of that account. We each made enough individually to have paid the mortgage payments alone. I made more money by ~2x, so my tax liability is significantly higher.

The interest and points payments exceed the standard deduction by enough such that we would each still itemize if we split it 50%-50%.

How can I split these deductions? My understanding is that each party should deduct the amount they paid, but that is a little gray for us. I want to approach it from a "minimize combined total tax" standpoint - which means I should take 100% of the deductions and they would take the standard deduction. Is that allowed? Encouraged / discouraged?

[AmyC · Accepted solution]

Since you are both on the title and loan, I will assume you are living together. The IRS does not know how the two have set up your budgets. It could be one of you pays the mortgage while the other pays utility bills. You might each pay half the mortgage. You will want to claim according to what you pay and have a record, if the IRS asks.