<rlcarr[at]animato.arlington.ma.us> wrote:
- quote -

Yes, that is what I found total liab jumped by by amount 20K
(and though I tried many things nothing had more than a
notional difference better than that)

Next up! Divorce! That silly license gives the Gubment way
to much coercive ability...

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KuntaKinte <roots[at]ld.networksolutions.com> writes:

- quote -

Yes.

[snip]

- quote -

Are you just assuming filing MFS will help, or have you
actually run the numbers? Because MFS is at its worst when
one spouse has most of the income (which is your case). So
it is cerainly possible that while filing MFS might make
some/all of your *AMT* go away, as a couple you might
*still* end up paying more total tax than if you filed MFJ.

--
Rich Carreiro rlcarr[at]animato.arlington.ma.us

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There are two parts to this, basically I'm hoping for a
consensus.

We'd like to file MFS and have my income be deducted by some
of the property taxes. I haven't crunched the numbers yet.

1) Can Marrieds switch status from year to year (ie last
year MFJ, this year MFS without repercussions?

2) Can deductions (eg real estate taxes) be taken as whole
by one of the spouses when MFS? -- or must they be evenly
split, or some formula?

Why:
1) Have been filing MFJ for years.
2) We're getting hammered by the AMT (extra 10K projected
for 06)
3) Due to AMT we get no reduction in tax liability for ~24K
in real estate taxes
4) Real estate taxes are split 17 & 7 (primary res and
2nd res)
5) taxable spouse income about 28X (yes 28) mine.
6) Real estate titles held in both names
7) my income is enough that the property taxes could help
reduce my income. And by myself I'm not subject to AMT.
So, we hope to reduce my tax liability, spouses AMT
liability and overall reduce the tax liabiilty as a
whole.

It`s some state our tax code is in when the public goes to
an anonymous public for info. An even scarier state is that
that anonymous info is usually more accurate and certainly
more informative than IRS publications!

thanks folks.

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