Married in 2024 filing separately in community property state

[Henri]

Client married in Nov 2024 but wants to file MFS.  Clients live in Texas.  They do have a prenuptial agreement which keeps separate property, ie, other spouse has no rights to separate property.

How do i report each spouse's income.  Does each one have to report 1/2 of each other's income on the MFS return even though they got married late in the year and had no access to each other's earned income.

How about income from separate property?  same question.

thank you so much.

[BobKamman]

Prenuptial agreements are not needed to protect separate property, as long as it is kept that way.  More often, they are needed to agree that community income will be considered separate and kept that way, including for tax purposes.  Have you actually seen the prenuptial?  (We shouldn't have to ask, but has your client?)  

[Henri]

I was told that income from separate property was to be kept separate, but they did not mention how it was to be handled for tax purposes.

the big issue i have is they live in a community property state.

[sjrcpa]

You need to know what they agreed is separate property.

That should be in the agreement.

[BobKamman]

Earned income is community property unless they agreed it's separate.  If that's what happened, then just file the income as you would in a common-law state.  IRS just wants to make sure someone pays tax on all of it.  

[Henri]

thank you, so I'll report income from separate property on the owner spouse's return, but i think i need to report 1/2 of the community income for the whole year, such as wages, on each spouses return (MFS) even though they were married in November 2024.  Is this correct.

[sjrcpa]

There's no community income before the community (marriage) began.

So what do you think the prenup does if not to say income earned during the marriage is not community property?