Say I work in a communal property state (CA), and my spouse work in a non-communal property state. I guess we have to file our respective state tax separately to make things simple. But should we file federal tax jointly or separately? Will filing federal tax jointly mess up with filing state tax separately? 

To make things really simple, we could file both federal and state tax separately. But because I live in a communal property state, if I file the federal tax separately, I am supposed to only include half of my salary in the tax return, right? Does my spouse then need to add the other half of my salary as her income in her federal return? Does she need to file state tax in my state as well since she's now getting half of my salary as her income? 

What's the easiest solution here? Thanks in advance!