Okay this same problem plagues me every year. The problem is this: When filing together you first have to do either your or your spouse's return. The problem is that at the very start of each return, you are asked to enter your spouse's net income from line 23600 . If you do not enter this info, you cannot proceed. What happens then is that you cannot start either return because BOTH ask you to provide the next spousal income first - an amount that will only be generated/calculate/available AFTER you have completed one of these returns. It is a conundrum. You can't start or complete either return because to do so you have to complete one of them. Sounds crazy? - it is.
My work around in the past has been to start a completely independent return for both myself and my partner, then I save the net income amount for each spouse and use those amounts for my final returns where you do one after the other (joint but not, if you know what I mean). This year, for the first time I am using the free software on the site and it is proving to be even more challenging - you can't have multiple returns open (for copy and pasting) at the same time and there seems to be no option to see the line by line return (looks like the paper tax forms) so you can see exactly what amount you need by looking at the individual lines.
If you can tell me (and the others who are struggling with this issue) a better way to do this I would be forever grateful. This is the only problem I have with this software. It is a stress and a headache. Please resolve it!
Many thanks!
