Hello! Context of the situation:My partner (unmarried) and I are joint owners in our primary residence home in Washington State.While we both have our own personal bank accounts, we also share one joint bank account which we both fund, and then we use that joint bank account to make mortgage payments.The mortgage tax statement only has my name / information on it (even though we are both on the mortgage application paperwork; I've read it's common that they just issue the tax statement to one person).My Questions:I've read that what can be done in this scenario is we split the mortgage amount we each pay accordingly, and each take 50% of the deduction. However, do we HAVE to do this? Or can I just take the full mortgage interest deduction on my personal taxes, and my partner just does the standard deduction?If we were to split the mortgage deduction 50/50, I read that one person has to attach some paperwork to the IRS tax filing (I can't remember which paperwork specifically; either the mortgage tax document or some the other person's "Schedule something". How does this work with Turbotax filings? Like how would one person "attach a file" for turbotax to attach to the filing? Thanks,Alex

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Alex_A

Question

Please help! Unmarried couple with joint mortgage interest deduction - how can we split?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
March 22, 2023
1 reply
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Hello!

Context of the situation:

My partner (unmarried) and I are joint owners in our primary residence home in Washington State.
While we both have our own personal bank accounts, we also share one joint bank account which we both fund, and then we use that joint bank account to make mortgage payments.
The mortgage tax statement only has my name / information on it (even though we are both on the mortgage application paperwork; I've read it's common that they just issue the tax statement to one person).

My Questions:

I've read that what can be done in this scenario is we split the mortgage amount we each pay accordingly, and each take 50% of the deduction. However, do we HAVE to do this? Or can I just take the full mortgage interest deduction on my personal taxes, and my partner just does the standard deduction?
If we were to split the mortgage deduction 50/50, I read that one person has to attach some paperwork to the IRS tax filing (I can't remember which paperwork specifically; either the mortgage tax document or some the other person's "Schedule something". How does this work with Turbotax filings? Like how would one person "attach a file" for turbotax to attach to the filing?

Thanks,

Alex

B

Bsch4477

Employee

There is nothing extra to file. See this answer from the IRS.

https://www.irs.gov/faqs/itemized-deductions-standard-deduction/other-deduction-questions/other-deduction-questions-2

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Alex_AAuthor

@Bsch4477 from the link you provided on the IRS website, it literally says "Both of you should attach a statement to your Schedules A explaining how you're dividing the mortgage interest and payments of real estate taxes."

How would we attach this statement if we're filing through Turbotax?

Also, any thoughts on my first question of whether we're required to split it, or whether we can choose to have one person take the full deduction?

B

Bsch4477

Employee

Seems clear that the IRS wants the taxpayer who actually paid the interest to deduct it. Unfortunately TurboTax doesn’t permit attachments. Going forward you might consider a bone owner account to pay the mortgage. You can reimburse each other as a private matter.