Whom goes first on the 1040

[DMICPA]

A new client came to me to the other day. The wife is a CPA and works for a big six firm in the audit dept. and does the taxes on home turbo tax but this year they owe so they came to me.

I am in the process of doing the return but in reviewing and comparing with the prior year(s) that she prepared, the wife is listed as the taxpayer and the spouse (husband) is listed as the spouse.

I have no problem with that but I have never seen this before. I am not going to switch things around since they have been filing this way.

Where does it say that the husband is the taxpayer? She makes more than Him so she listed herself first.

I had to do a mental adjustment in the listing of things but I cannot find where the man is the taxpayer and the wife is the spouse.

She did an excellent job. I did a little better but she did great.

Anyone seen this wife/taxpayer, husband/ spouse before?

[abby]

absolutely fine

When I first got married I added my husband to my tax return and we filed with him as spouse for two years. I reversed it for one reason only; I kept miscoding the income because I was so used to the man being the taxpayer that it was just too much of an uphill battle to keep it straight.

I checked at the time to make sure it was legit - and it is was and is. We do have one client who remarried a few years ago, and we added him as the spouse. Still hard for me to keep the coding straight, but, with plenty of double checking - it's possible!

[Burke]

It doesn't matter to the IRS. However, I don't do it because it causes errors on my part. When you are used to having the taxpayer in one place, and doing things in a particular order, it is easier on the preparer.