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September 6, 2024
Question

Refund split between husband and wife

  • September 6, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 0 views

Filed joint. How can I find husband-wife refund split?

    2 replies

    rjs
    Employee
    September 6, 2024

    There is no individual refund amount on a joint tax return. You can't see the individual refunds amounts because the information simply isn't there. Everything is combined and there is only one refund calculation. The calculation of the refund is based on your total combined income, the amount of tax that the two of you together have to pay on that combined income, and the total combined amount of tax that you paid through withholding or estimated tax payments. It is not calculated separately for each person.


    Why are you looking for individual refund amounts? If you are trying to divide the refund between you, you can split it in any way that seems fair to the two of you.

     

    September 6, 2024

    This is a do-it-yourself project.

    one method professional firms use:

    they discuss with the client the methodology to use and then prepare 2 separate returns (some professional software has a provision to show separate taxes but that still involves certain assumptions) which involves several things

    1) filing status to use - usually MFS or Single

    2) if they itemize how to split them - must tell Turbotax that you must itemize

    3) if there are dependents - who gets them - if there's only one there's no way to split them which can cause issues if there are items requiring a dependent such as dependent care deduction 

    4) other items where client input is needed to determine whose return shows the item(s)

     

    once the returns are done line 24 less lines 27,28,29 and 31 is computed for each return 

    this net to the net of both returns is used to allocate the net tax liability of the joint return

    from this each taxpayer's withholding and estimates are subtracted to arrive at the refund/balance due for each.