- Ohio
- Married
- Home mortgage in spouse's name - purchased before marriage. (1098 has spouse's ss# as payer)
- Mortgage / real estate tax payments made from joint/marital account.

- We plan to filie MFS as it would provide us with a smaller overall income tax payment compared to MFJ when considering both fed and state.
- We are also considering the option of my MFS claiming the mortgage interest and real estate tax payment deductions as it would provide us the smallest income tax.

Is this option available to us since payments were made through joint / marital account or are we limited to my spouse claiming the deduction?

“Is this option available to us since payments were made through joint / marital account or are we limited to my spouse claiming the deduction?”---->You can’t deduct both r/e taxes and mortgage interest expenses. If you are the primary borrower, you are legally obligated to pay the debt and you actually make the payments. If you are married and both you and your spouse sign for the loan, then both of you are primary borrowers. If you pay your spouse’s mortgage to help her out, however, you cannot deduct the interest unless you co-signed the loan; the mortgage( deed) is in yourspouse’s name and under your spouse’s SSN and that is how it is reported. To deduct real estate taxes, the taxes must be imposed on the person taking the deduction. Real estate taxes would be imposed on the owner of the property. The Tax Court has allowed beneficial owners to also claim the deduction. The co-signer would not be a legal owner and the status of "beneficial owner" is a very difficult one to establish. Hence the co-signer cannot deduct the real estate taxes. I guess you MAY file jointly you will make out better.