Married Filing Jointly - Fulltime/Parttime Resident

Ward

Hi- I'm married filling jointly. My spouse lived/worked fulltime in CO and I lived/worked half the year in CO and the other half in IL. How do I designate in the State tax return section this difference? FreeTaxUSA does seem to let me designate my spouse as a fulltime resident and myself as a parttime resident. Thank you!

Taylor

Hello Ward,

For Colorado, when one spouse is a full-year resident and the other is a part-year resident, CO requires you to select "Part-Year Resident" for the joint return. You can enter separate residency dates for each spouse. Next, allocate the CO income on the screen that follows.

Bottom of page 5:
https://tax.colorado.gov/sites/tax/files/documents/Book104_2025.pdf

For Illinois, our software currently does not support joint IL returns when spouses have different residency statuses. You have two options:

1. File a joint IL return and elect to treat both spouses as full-year IL residents (as Illinois allows). Keep in mind this means all income for both spouses would be subject to IL tax, which may not be ideal depending on your situation.

2. File as Married Filing Separately for IL only. To do this, you would create a separate FreeTaxUSA account, enter only your information, select Married Filing Separately, and mail the IL state return only (not the federal return, since that's already filed jointly).

IL explains it this way: "If you file a joint federal return and one spouse is a full-year Illinois resident while the other is a part-year resident or a nonresident (e.g., military personnel), file “married filing separately.” Do not recalculate any items on your federal return. Instead, you must divide each item of income and deduction shown on your joint federal return between your separate Illinois returns following the Allocation Worksheet on Page 17. If you elect to file a joint Illinois return, you must treat both your spouse and yourself as residents."

Page 6:
https://tax.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/tax/forms/incometax/documents/currentyear/individual/il-1040-instr.pdf