MA - married filing separately. State requesting info about spouse's income

[criticalthinker]

Good evening,

I'm relatively new to MA (less than one year here) and recently married (last summer). For 2013 we're filing separately.

I have a MA-related question that came up while using TurboTax. It's asking for my wife's income for last year. Why is that necessary if we're filing separately? That does not make sense to me, but then I am unfamiliar with the way things are done here in MA. Is this a MA thing? For what purpose?

I moved from a no-income tax state so this is new to me. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[davew128]

If you have a question as to why the software is asking a question you should ask the people who write the software.

 

[LdiJ]

Good evening,

I'm relatively new to MA (less than one year here) and recently married (last summer). For 2013 we're filing separately.

I have a MA-related question that came up while using TurboTax. It's asking for my wife's income for last year. Why is that necessary if we're filing separately? That does not make sense to me, but then I am unfamiliar with the way things are done here in MA. Is this a MA thing? For what purpose?

I moved from a no-income tax state so this is new to me. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks!

My advice would be to use a tax professional this year instead of attempting to use TurboTax. That way you can get all of your questions answered, and then if you feel confident enough to do it yourself next year, you can. MA is not a community property state therefore they wouldn't be asking it due to community property rules, but there may be something in MA that requires it. I really do recommend this since you are coming from a state with no state income tax. Sometimes state income tax returns are actually more complicated than federal ones.

Our firm does tax returns for all 50 states, and every one of those returns passes my desk for final quality control. I don't recall ever seeing the need to provide a spouses income on a separate return for MA, but I also cannot be certain that we have had enough of those for me to remember.

 

[criticalthinker]

If you have a question as to why the software is asking a question you should ask the people who write the software.

Thanks Dave, but I tried that. 17 days and counting since I submitted the question via their support site.

LdiJ I think you're right. I'll just have to bite the bullet this year considering I'm in unfamiliar territory with the State filing.

 

[davew128]

I don't recall ever seeing the need to provide a spouses income on a separate return for MA, but I also cannot be certain that we have had enough of those for me to remember.

I used to be on a professional society's state tax committee there and unless something changed since I left I cannot possibly think of a reason for the question other than TurboTax being TurboTax.

 

[ShyCat]

It's possible that TurboTax is asking for the purpose of comparing MFJ and MFS results so it can recommend one over the other.

 

[criticalthinker]

Thank you all. I really appreciate the time you've taken to respond.

I suspect you're right about it being a quirk of TT. Another reason why DIY tax isn't always the wisest option -- there are simply too many exceptions to the rigid algorithms used by these applications.

 

[davew128]

It's possible that TurboTax is asking for the purpose of comparing MFJ and MFS results so it can recommend one over the other.

While that's possible, it sort of defeats the purpose of simply allowing people to prepare the returns in the manner they want within the elections provided for by law. One of the reasons I hate those programs. It would take me three times longer to prepare a return since I already know what the result is supposed to be. Just let me input the darned info already.

 

[LdiJ]

While that's possible, it sort of defeats the purpose of simply allowing people to prepare the returns in the manner they want within the elections provided for by law. One of the reasons I hate those programs. It would take me three times longer to prepare a return since I already know what the result is supposed to be. Just let me input the darned info already.

I know...I hate those question and answer formats. A tax return that takes me 15 minutes on our professional software would take two hours on that kind of software.

 

[Stephen1]

Many years ago I once clicked a wrong button on TurboTax. Didn't realize it until later in the process (when I starting asking questions irrelevant to what the true situation was). I had a heck of a time getting that button unclicked and elements related to that error un-associated. Maybe you inadvertently clicked a wrong button.