this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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It's very interesting to me that people tend to mention tax breaks for marriage because it's just not the case except if one of the spouses does not work or makes significantly less than the other. For example, when I was married, our taxes went up by about 6k a year. It's called the marriage penalty tax. A lot of these other benefits also depended entirely on the state/job/facility and are still required to be granted via other documentation. For example, Florida is a probate state and requires a will regardless of marital status or you have to go through probate (ask me how I know). Medical decisions and adoption seem to be important benefits, but these can also happen without marriage. Survivor's benefits are interesting as well because those don't generally extend past the last owed check, but do still go through probate if you're in a probate state.
It’s the case unless your household makes over $693,750, in which case you should probably be having an accountant do your taxes, and $6k is a drop in the bucket for you.
For everyone else, the brackets are exactly double the single file, so if you’re making exactly the same amount it’s a wash, and for most couples it means ending in a lower tax bracket.
I'm curious how that could possibly be the case...
You said in another comment that you were both making $45k. According to this table from the IRS you would each be paying $3,743 as single filers and $7,483 filling jointly. That adds up to a $3 savings when you get married. Not too mention a $6k difference is 80% of the total taxes owed so it would be wild to see that big of a variation caused by filling jointly.
Perhaps there was some tax break or credit you got when you were single that you lost when you got married? In that case, couldn't you just file your taxes separately if there really was a significant difference from filing jointly?
This was before the recent tax change. Check out the 2021 or older marriage tax calculators. However now I pay more in taxes than ever and I file single.