Chiming in here as I have maybe two or three clients right now in this situation. MFJ, Spouse A hit 140k in W2 wages and Spouse B has 18k in Unemployment. The 18k in UE puts them past the 150k threshold, hence no exclusion as it is right now.

They have historically always filed together, many years. If we do a MFS split, if it indeed does benefit them, would it then create other problems such as maybe flagging the accounts for deviation from the historical norm. I'd hate to possibly cause delays.

They are in no rush to file so maybe another option is to suggest to wait it out a bit longer and maybe they issue something later down the line to not count the 10.2k of UE in the AGI to determine if the exclusion is available?