Married guys and Taxes...thoughts

[KevDen2005]

Hey everyone and I wanna get some thoughts.

People who are married and both spouse and you have a job. Do you file "jointly-married" or "separately-married?"

Please give me your thoughts on what you do and why?

Thanks for the input.

[ChunkyMonkey]

Each circumstance is different obviously, but few advantages of filing jointly... Lower tax on combined income, higher standard deduction, more tax benefits. Talk to your CPA for a better advice. My lil bro is a CPA, he charges $160 per tax return in most cases. Let me know if you can use his service.

[KevDen2005]

Some research I have done is that higher joint income couples sometimes will file separately even though there are the tax credits.

For instance, thus far filing married-separate is way better according to turbo tax rather than filing married-jointly. My wife and I make about 145,000 (gross) and have no kids.

[HoneyBadger]

Might be a good option for you. My wife and I make about half that, have a kid on the way, and have only been married for 2 years.

I just had a thought: Little HoneyBadger will be born in March... Should I wait until after he is born to file taxes?

[Gman]

How does having a child in 2013 impact the 2012 tax year?

[KestrelBike]

How does having a child in 2013 impact the 2012 tax year?

What GMan means to say is that 2012 Tax Return only pertains to the events that happened in 2012 with very limited exceptions (such as being allowed to make retirement contributions in january that effect the previous year). Your child being born in march will only affect your 2013 tax return.

The vast majority of cases I have seen show that MFJ is a much better outcome than MFS, unless the income is completely skewed towards the Taxpayer or Spouse, and even then MFJ might still turn out to be the better scenario.

[HoneyBadger]

How does having a child in 2013 impact the 2012 tax year?

Valid point. I need to go to bed... [facepalm]

[KevDen2005]

Taxes this year suck. And I specify this year because we usually get money back not pay.

[Dingo]

FWIW... my wife and I got married a year ago. My income is essentially the same as last year - last year I got $600 back combined Fed and State. This year, she tried it on Turbotax to see how much she'd make, and came out at 2500. Jointly, we're getting back $6000. Sooo.... in our case, we seem to get back more filing jointly. My income is around 56,000 and hers is around 22,000 (which is why she's in school to catch up to my pay grade. lol.). Hope this helps.

[KevDen2005]

FWIW... my wife and I got married a year ago. My income is essentially the same as last year - last year I got $600 back combined Fed and State. This year, she tried it on Turbotax to see how much she'd make, and came out at 2500. Jointly, we're getting back $6000. Sooo.... in our case, we seem to get back more filing jointly. My income is around 56,000 and hers is around 22,000 (which is why she's in school to catch up to my pay grade. lol.). Hope this helps.

I imagine a big part of that is the hope credit and the amount you earn together is under $124,000 (according to Turbo Tax).

[Dingo]

I don't really care how it works - I just know that while she will wisely save a large portion of hers, mine will immediately be sunk into yet more back ordered reloading components that I otherwise couldn't afford. :-) And everybody will be happy...

[Gman]

The wife and I have been hammered on taxes the last 2 years. We're under the "wealthy" mark so I don't get how only the taxes have gone up on the "wealthy". I had to change my W-4 to no deductions and we're still having to send in a big check.

...yet we make too much money to deduct losses for a rental property (my wife's previous primary residence).

I'm feelin' the love.[Kick2]

[sniper7]

Obama didnt raise your taxes. Bush let his tax cuts expire.

[Gman]

You've read the entire tax code to come to that conclusion?

Sent from my tactical android.

[KevDen2005]

No no no, guys, there have been tax cuts. Remember all the tax cuts expired and went full throttle on January 1st, but our awesome Congress made some cuts from that. So we should be thankful.

Yeah, doing the research we are apparently wealthy too, even though we pay $1000 every month in student loans on top of everything else.

[sniper7]

You've read the entire tax code to come to that conclusion?

Sent from my tactical android.


where is Marlins quote....Sarcasm, Learn it, Know it, Live it....

[Gman]

If my lips or fingers are moving, you can expect it to be sarcasm. I just don't know you that well. [Wink]

I went through the list of available fonts for replies, and Sarcastica was conspicuously absent.

[BigDee]

Every situation is different.

In my particular situation we file separately. If we were not married my wife would qualify for the earned income credit and we'd get an extra 5k back. Sometimes marriage puts you at a disadvantage when it comes to taxes.

[crashdown]

I used to run it through Turbotax both ways every year to see which works better.
It's free to do that, you don't pay till the end.

[car-15]

I used to run it through Turbotax both ways every year to see which works better.
It's free to do that, you don't pay till the end.
this^^, I let my wife file with both of the kids as hoh and claim all the deductions, she makes less than I do, but we make 6 digits together, and I file straight up short form, I usually pay 12-1,500.00 and she gets 9-10,000.00 back, we pay mine and split the difference, if we were to file together we would only get 4-5,000.00 back.

[hobowh]

nm

[hobowh]

Hey everyone and I wanna get some thoughts.

People who are married and both spouse and you have a job. Do you file "jointly-married" or "separately-married?"

Please give me your thoughts on what you do and why?

Thanks for the input.

Generally joint is better, unless you can both itemize, or there is some other reason you would not want to generally trust/debt issues, but consult a pro to get your best answer