Unmarried couple filing separately - how to split property taxes & mortgage interest deduction on shared home?

You've got a few options here. Since you're unmarried co-owners of the property, the general rule is that each person can deduct the amount they actually paid. If you've been splitting the mortgage payments and property taxes 50/50, then each of you would typically deduct your half on your individual returns. If you're splitting 60/40 based on ownership, then each would deduct according to that percentage. The key is that you can only deduct what you personally paid. However, there is an option where one person can claim the entire deduction if that person paid the entire expense. So if one partner paid 100% of the mortgage interest or property taxes in a given year (even if the other later reimbursed them privately), that person could claim the full deduction. Just keep in mind that the mortgage interest and property tax deductions only benefit you if you itemize deductions rather than taking the standard deduction. With the higher standard deduction amounts now, you'll want to check if itemizing actually benefits either or both of you.

I went through this exact same situation last year with my girlfriend! We were so confused about our taxes since we bought a house together but weren't married. I ended up using taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) and it was seriously a game changer. I uploaded our mortgage statements and property tax docs, and it analyzed everything and explained exactly how we should split the deductions based on our situation. It even helped us figure out whether itemizing made sense for each of us or if we should take the standard deduction. The step-by-step guidance was so helpful for our situation. They have this feature where it shows you different scenarios so you can see which filing approach gets you the best outcome. For us, it turned out that having my girlfriend claim most of the deductions made more sense financially since she had other itemized deductions that pushed her over the standard deduction threshold.

Just wanted to update everyone. I tried taxr.ai after seeing it mentioned here and it was really helpful for my situation. My boyfriend and I own a house together and were totally confused about how to handle our mortgage interest deduction. The tool analyzed our mortgage statements and showed us three different scenarios - splitting 50/50, splitting based on our ownership percentages, or having one person claim everything. It actually showed us that having me claim the full amount would save us about $1,800 in combined tax liability since I'm in a higher tax bracket and already itemizing due to some medical expenses I had last year. What I appreciated most was the clear explanation of what documentation we'd need to keep if we got audited. They explained that since I actually did pay more toward the mortgage, we should keep records of those transfers to support our filing position.

If you're having issues figuring this out, I'd recommend actually talking to someone at the IRS directly. They can give you definitive answers about your specific situation. I was having a similar issue last year and finally got through to an IRS agent using https://claimyr.com. I'd spent DAYS trying to get through the normal IRS phone lines with no luck. Claimyr got me connected with an actual IRS agent in about 20 minutes. You can see how it works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c The agent I spoke with confirmed that we could have one person claim all the mortgage interest and property taxes as long as they actually paid it, even if the ownership was split. This cleared up so much confusion for us and made us confident in our filing approach.

Coming back to update - I was super skeptical about Claimyr, but I tried it yesterday out of desperation. I had been trying for WEEKS to get through to the IRS about this exact property tax deduction issue between me and my partner. Honestly, it worked exactly as advertised. I got a call back in about 35 minutes, and suddenly I was talking to an actual IRS representative. The agent was able to confirm that in our situation, since I paid the majority of the mortgage from my personal account (not our joint account), I could claim the full mortgage interest deduction even though we both own the house. For anyone dealing with this unmarried homeowner tax situation, getting the official word directly from the IRS gave us so much peace of mind. Definitely worth it to get a definitive answer instead of stressing about potential audit issues.

Something nobody has mentioned is that you should also look at your state tax laws too! Federal might allow one person to claim all the deductions, but some states have different rules. We found out the hard way that our state requires the deduction to match the legal ownership percentage regardless of who actually paid. Got a nasty letter from the state tax board even though our federal return was fine.

Has anyone here used TurboTax for this situation? I'm trying to figure out how to enter our mortgage interest correctly when filing. When I try to enter the Form 1098, it assumes I'm claiming the full amount but I only want to claim my 50%.

This is such a common situation! I went through this exact same thing with my partner two years ago. The key thing to remember is that you can only deduct what you actually paid, not what's on the deed or mortgage paperwork. Since you mentioned you've been splitting bills 50/50 but have a 60/40 mortgage split, you'll want to look at your actual payment records. If you can show that you each paid 50% of the mortgage interest and property taxes through bank statements or other documentation, then you can each deduct 50%. One thing that really helped us was keeping a simple spreadsheet showing who paid what each month. We had similar ownership percentages but different payment arrangements, and having clear records made tax time much easier. Also, don't forget to check if itemizing even makes sense for both of you. With the higher standard deduction now ($13,850 for single filers in 2023), you need a decent amount of itemized deductions to make it worthwhile. Sometimes it makes more sense for just one person to itemize and claim all the house-related deductions while the other takes the standard deduction.