First time homebuyer and Married Filing Separate

[MariaR08]

So at first I thought you could not get the first time homebuyer credit if you did married filing separate. Now I see you can because the irs.gov website says the credit is $8k for married filing joint & single, and $4k for married filing separate.

So now this leads me to believe in a husband and wife situation: if wife owns their home (which she bought prior to marriage), and now husband (has never owned property) wants to buy a new home with his mother - would the husband qualify for the $4k if he does married filing separate?

But now this brings up another issue - if husband and wife are in a community property/community income state like CA and NV... I believe this fact disqualifies the husband EVEN if he files married filing separate, right? The husband, by marriage and because of community property/community income, became part owner of the house they are living in; hence, he would not qualify as "first time homebuyer".

Thoughts anyone?

~Maria

[solomon]

No credit for the husband. If either married person owned a home within the prior three years, MFS does not help.

[AZ-Tax]

Allow me to add another twist to this...

I have a client who married in 2007 and bot a house in 2007. First tax return (2007) was filed MFS. County records only has one spouse on deed. Neither one owned a house before in their life. Community state. Does one of the spouses qualify for the new home credit?

[taxea]

Aside from the above isn't this credit for a home you are going to live in? taxea

[MariaR08]

Yeah it is. The married couple is going to live in this new home.

This is one of those where the wife owns their current home and is "letting it go" - so the husband is buying their new home with his mom and he wanted to get the first time homebuyer credit =)

~Maria

[taxea]

And how about mom? Does she own a home? If there is any way he qualifies for the credit he will only get a portion of it. taxea

[David1980]

If nonmarried people buy a home they can allocate the credit between them in any reasonable method so long as none is allocated to someone who doesn't qualify. So if mom doesn't qualify and son does, they could allocate it to the son.

Of course son doesn't qualify because of wife's home, so nobody gets any. Unless the mom maybe uses it as her personal home for 3 years? Boy wouldn't that be "helpful" for the marriage.