D. Stussy wrote:

- quote -

Right. I should have mentioned that I live in Oregon, which
is not a community property state.

- quote -

Prior to our marriage, we both owned some stocks and mutual
funds and had capital loss caryovers. Since our marriage, we
now jointly own everything, have filed jointly for several
years, and had both long and short term gains and losses on
various stocks and mutual funds in each year, resulting in a
new capital loss carryover, of which $3000 is applied to
that year's taxable income. So, other than splitting
everything down the middle, I can't think of any other
division that would make sense. But maybe I am missing
something?

-David, quicksailor[at]yahoo.com

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David wrote:

- quote -

That may depend on where you live (Community property state
or not).

- quote -

Based on what you said, we DON'T know that each of you gets
half of the loss. Losses follow ownership. You didn't say
whether or not both of you were owners of the assets that
generated the losses.

- quote -

The IRS has published instructions on how to claim
jointly-made payments on separate returns.

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Last year, my wife and I filed our federal taxes jointly. This year,
we may file separately (MFS). This is due to the fact that our taxes
should be lower due to the way the AMT affects our tax situation.
However, there are a few things that I still can't figure out, and I
was
wondering if anyone could enlighten me.
If we get interest and dividends from jointly owned mutual funds,
how do we distribute the income between our tax forms?
If we have a long term capital loss caryover of about $8000 from
last
year, and several short and long term capital gains and losses which
have us end up with a capital loss of about $14,000, how do we
distribute
them between the two Sched D.'s? I know we end up with a loss of
$1,500 each to subtract from our taxable income for this year, but I am
not sure how to distribute things between the two forms. Can we
divide everything down the middle? Next year, if we file jointly, can
we recombine our capital loss caryovers?
Finally, if one of us is underwitheld, and we want to apply the
rule about having as much witheld as was owed last year, how
do we adjust for the fact that the amount owed last year was
for a joint return, not a separate one?

Thanks for any advice.

-David, quicksailor[at]yahoo.com

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