Hi, my spouse and I live and work in different states. So in the whole of the year 2014 ,I worked/lived in New Jersey and my spouse worked/lived in Ohio. I used a tax software to do our tax returns and it appears that MFJ for both federal and the two states (OH/NJ) gives us the best tax return - or the least amount to payout .

My question is can I do that or do we have to file MFJ for federal for the two of us and MFS for NJ for myself and MFS for OH for my spouse?

I tried both approaches with the software preparing a mock MFS federal return for each of us to use in creating the MFS state returns however I see that MFJ gives us the best tax liability rate.

We both just have W2 income and using standard deductions.