MFJ/Widow no qualifying child

[ILLMAS]

TP spouse died in Oct. 2015, 2015 was filed as MFJ, when I rolled over 2015 to 2016, the spouses info was removed, however per IRS, you are able to retain the benefits of MFJ for two years after the year of your spouses death (agree), I re-entered the spouses information and ATX gives me the following error in red:  Spouse's date of death must equal the current tax year 2016 or processing year 2017 to electronically file the return, then in blue I get this error:  Spouse's date of death is prior to 2016, spouse's information should be removed from the return before filing.  I have not this situation in a while, but shouldn't the TP be able to file MFJ for second year and efile, I am I missing something or doing something wrong here?

Thanks

[Elrod]

Surviving spouse.    If you are the surviving spouse, the year your spouse died is the last year for which you can file a joint return with that spouse. After that, if you don't remarry, you must file as a qualifying widow(er) with dependent child, head of household, or single. For more information about each of these filing statuses, see Pub. 501.

https://www.irs.gov/publications/p554/ch01.html

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p501.pdf

[Pacun]

Marco,

If no children to be claimed, SINGLE is her filing status