Married Filing Jointly, Initially worked in different state then in same state

Explorer

Hi,

I worked in CA from Jan to Sep 2023, moved to CT in Sep mid and working in CT from Oct 23. My spouse went outside U.S till June and started working in CT from July 2023.

Can we file federal as Married Filing Jointly

How to proceed with state filings as I will be part resident for CT and CA ?

and spouse will be resident for CA.

Please suggest

Thanks

kiarab

Hello,

Yes, you should be able to file jointly if you would like on your federal return.

For your state returns, I am a little confused about your spouse's state of residency. You mentioned that they were outside of the US until they came back and started working in CT in July. But later on, you mentioned that they were a resident of CA. I assume one of those is a typo.

For CT: if you were both part year residents of CT and have different periods of residency, you should file separately. (page 1: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/drs/forms/2023/income/2023-ct-1040nrpy-instructions_1223.pdf )

For CA, you generally use same filing status as your federal return. I would recommend doing this, cause CA is a community property state and so it can be had to divide up the income between spouses if you file separately for CA, especially since you had income in another state. You are allowed to file a separate return if one of you was a nonresident for the entire year and had no income from CA sources.

So on our software, you should file a joint federal and CA return. Then you will need to create a couple of other accounts to report the CT return as our software will not allow you to file two married filing separately returns. You will only enter one spouse's information (income, deductions, etc) per the account (so on the federal portion, you will pick married filing separately). You will want to select to mail in your CT returns as you will not be able to e-file them as you e-filed your federal return on another account.