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It didn't affect us much because our incomes are dissimilar but if they are close together, you sometimes get hit with the 'marriage penalty'. There aren't any great benefits to getting married though.
PS - Usually filing jointly is your best option, married filing seperately loses out on a lot of benefits.
The only way it's a benefit is if one person makes a lot less than the other. We actually would have had to pay $100 more filing jointly.
We both make so little that it's actually benefited us. Well, it helped DH last time we filed because I got a credit for being a student (and I was nice and gave him some of the extra money). We were told that married filing separately would totally screw us, so we avoided it.
We'll be filing together for the first time this year. I'm only commenting so I can bookmark this thread. I'm interestd to hear from more people!
It helped my paycheck; that definitely got a little bigger. But like OP, my DH is self employed so we will see what happens come April.
Is there any way for planning for the tax hit or donating enough so that it doesn't hurt? I'm wondering if there is a predictor or some more information listed somewhere.
I was told to not get married because it impacts the tax return. However, I plan on leaving the withholding as "single but married" because you end up getting MORE taken out that way (tax benefit, supposedly, if you choose "married") and get more back in the end (supposedly).
We also plan on having another baby, so that'll help some, too, with the child tax credits.
However, we'll let whoever does our taxes decide which is the best way for us to go.
@MapleBecky: I'm in Canada too. How do you know you'll take a hit? This will be my first year filing jointly, and FH will have lots of tuition credits left to claim...
We got married and bought a house in the same year so I'm not sure which one was more beneficial for tax purposes but we got a very substantial refund last year.
Good thread! Keep posting everyone. This is really helping me out.
I think in the grand scheme of things if one spouse makes considerably more than the other, they can and should file together for sure because then that shows as 'one' income and the taxes are calculated on that household income as a whole. Also, a spouse might be earning very less which allows them to be listed as a dependent.
I do my own tax forms but my FI has his brother in law to do his. My question is, when we get married should we have it professionally done?? I kind of dont like having anyone(like a FBIL, else up in my tax business).
I dont know. I dont want to have to rely on a FBIL for my taxes!! Id rather have H&R Block do it. I havent talked to my FI about this yet though. His BIL has been doing his taxes for years now. SO I might have a fight coming my way.
Im kind of mad that my FI has never bothered to learn how to do his. He could have been doing it WITH his BIL this whole time to learn how to do it.Laziness or just fear of it?? I dont know. But Im not the kind of person who relies on family to do it.In fact,my father started doing mine when I was a teen, but then I learned how and started doing it myself.
If u have done yours yourself for years,will u go tp a professional for the first time after u get married?? Just to see how they do it and understand what u might need to do next year???
I think I might do that. I have been doing my own. But when I get married, I might have it professionally done.At least for the first year.
Does that make snese??
@Monkeyface: For the first year, you will probably get a refund since you were withholding at the higher single rate for over half the year. Just make sure you put in a new W-4 after you get married to adjust your withholding and you should be fine.
@Sasha2011: Actually, a spouse is never a dependant on a Federal form. Since you are jointly filing, you get the deduction and exemption for both of you.
@Earlybride: Please don't go to H&R Block or any of the tax services. Usually the person that files your return just took a summer class and doesn't really know anything about what they are doing. You get the same experience filing with an online program (I personally use TurboTax and it's super easy). There really isn't much different being married than being single except that you put both names on the return (assuming that you both have pretty simple returns and no investments, property, etc).
@Earlybride- I would recommend having a CPA do your taxes, someone outside the family. I did pay $250 last year but got some much more back than if I had done it myself. I find it to be very beneficial. With that being said please, please, do not go to H&R block. I used to take mine their and I when I started going to a real CPA they found so many issues and I had to go back a couple of years and ammend all of my tax returns and I was a student with no property so it should have been very simple.
@Earlybride: honestly, some people just don't understand the forms and would rather have someone who DOES do it for them. Your FI could be one of those people. I know *I* am.
Of course, after I had my son and started having stocks, I definitely wanted a pro to do mine. It's easier, quicker, and I'd rather have someone who knows what their doing get me the most back.
@MsJeep23: I'm excited about the possibility of a bigger paycheck, but nervous about April. Just curious, did you guys make a decision to file jointly and then update your forms? Or is that something that you're doing automatically since you're now married? I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet...
@PinkPandaBear: Most likely you will file jointly, there are very few cases where filing seperately is better. You will want to put in a new W-4 after you get married, but because you are getting married over halfway into the year, you are probably not going to have to worry about owing taxes this year. We ended up getting a pretty big refund the first year because we had too much withheld.
@MissAsB: Nice, thanks for the great advice! If we do file jointly, would I now have to do an itemized return since FH does because he is self-employed? Or can I still file for the standard deduction?
I've been wondering about this myself. I used to get a nice refund because I would be the one to claim our daughter. DH makes almost all the income now and I am a SAHM. I will need to file and claim on the unemployment benefits I received after being laid off though. It's not much but I'm wondering if it's better to file joint or separate, and if we file separate who should claim our daughter. DH is paying fed taxes back from when he worked on a 1099 years ago because he owed so much, he is on a payment plan. So if we file joint any refund we get will be applied to that debt. I'm not sure how it works with filing separately though. Anyone know if they can take my refund (if I'm even owed one) since we are married?
@roxy821: Same here. Ours was a one-two punch, so I really don't know which helped more or less. We also bought with the tax credit, so we got a nice chunk of change from that which helped our savings quite a bit.
@PinkPandaBear: It depends. If the deduction he is claiming now is higher than the standard deduction for a married couple, you would still have to itemize. If it isn't, then you would claim the standard deduction.
@7-9-11bride: They might be able to take part of your refund in order to collect on his debt. You should check with a CPA, you might be able to file an injured spouse form in order to get some money back if they took it all.
If one of you is self employed and the other has a salary- the self employed person get a break--
I'm not working right now. But my husband is and has been for some time. He was all excited when he came home on Friday because his pay check was HUGE! (Not that huge... but bigger than normal). He had worked less hours during the paycheck, but received more money because he claimed me on his taxes. We are very thankful!
Thanks. We will probably see what works best. If claiming both of us and filing joint will put a big refund towards his debt we will probably do that. I may even owe this year, I don't know how unemployment works.
@MissAsB: Did u buy the turbo tax program or did u go to their website??? Let me know. I really dont want my FBIL to do our taxes when we get married. I like the idea of using Turbo tax. And not having to pay someone money to do it.
@Earlybride: I bought the program but you can also do it online. Depending on your income, you might qualify for free file, where you don't have to pay anything at all to file a simple tax return.
We will be hit with the marriage penalty once we are married - it happens when two people make around the same amount and your combined number tips you into a higher bracket. But you are only taxed with the higher % on the money above that bracket threshold so for example if you make 263k combined you are taxed the higher rate on 13k and your "single" rate for the rest. This happens even if you file separately I am told.
Knowing the "penalty" would affect us had a lot of do with why we chose a January wedding. Even if you get married Dec 29, you are taxed for the entire year as if you were married.
I am really curious if we will get a higher refund. FI and I are getting married legally in either October or November for immigration reasons, so we will do married filing jointly for 2011. FI will have no US income for 2011 (all his income up until his immiration is foreign earned so he won't be taxed on it in the US) - so essentially it will be the two of us and just my salary. I usually get a $1,000 or so refund............ wonder how much it will be for 2011 since we will be married but no extra income on FI's part??
@Monkeyface: I think on the IRS website there is a calculator that might help plan this.
Try this Witholding Calculator. http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=96196,00.html?portlet=4
My FI found this website that will tell you what your tax percentage will be if you fill our the values accurately. We will actually get more back when we are married and file jointly because I make about half of what he does, so when you average our salaries it will actually bring him down a tax bracket.
If we don't donate enough to have enough itemized deductions to match our standard deduction, then i don't think it will help us on our taxes, am I correct?
@Khumble: I am in Ontario Canada, and we have filed jointly as Common Law for 2 years now because we benefitted from the tax credits. It really depends on which province you are in though.
You guys do know that you can have any amount you want withheld from your paycheck right? You just fill it out on your W-9 form or whatever. You can take an extra percent out so that when you do your taxes you will get a bigger refund. Although that just means that you are giving good old uncle sam a nice interest free loan, but some people can't save so they like to let the government hold their money and get a big tax check each year.
For both of us it will help because my SO makes over 100k a year and I make like 55k a year and combined we don't go over some of the limits, but we both were single. Also, I don't itemize and he does for the mortgage intrest deduction and we would be better off if we both itemized (I just don't have enough expenses to offset the standard deduction, but together we do).
I love doing taxes.
Maybe this is a dumb question, but do you file your 2011 taxes as married even if you were only married for a couple months in 2011? Or do you have to file separately for the months you weren't married or something? I've been doing my own taxes (with Turbo Tax) for a couple years now, but it was just for me and just for a single state. The marriage thing (on top of relocating mid-year) has me confused about it all now...
I make about three times what my husband makes, but we both make a good salary. We both changed our withholding after we got married in July, so for half the year we were getting more in our paychecks. I was worried. Sure enough, come April my husband's salary was, of course, taxed at my higher taxable rate and even though previously we both had received substantial refunds, last year we owed a little bit. I changed my withholding to married but withhold at a higher single rate this year so hopefully that will help.
I actually like doing my taxes and I'm excited to get all the forms (1099s and W-4s) back to see what the impact of being married was...
@lisaelanna: we just had our accountant do our taxes - we were married in August 2011 and as far as the IRSwas concerned we were married for the whole year.
A bit of an update* our accountant suggested we file married/separate because DH is self employed and owns some property. He ended up owing less taxes and I ended up losing the credits I would have gotten for paid student loan interest and got a $0 refund. Married ended up being good for him, less good for me, but I suppose since its 'our' money now it balanced out.
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Hi Ladies!
Calling out to all those tax savvy ladies out there with a random quesiton: did getting married impact your taxes at all? I've heard that getting married is a great tax benefit for some, not so great for others.
FH is self-employed and I work for the man. If it's not too personal I was just wondering if getting married was a tax boon or a bane for you newly marrieds out there.