Hi Mommy: If you and your new husband live together you have two choices MFJ or MFS (joint or separate). If you were married and did not live together for the last 6 months of the year, you can be considered single for tax purposes and then the Head of Household would be an option. Very seldom does MFS benefit you financially. If you have not changed your name on your Social Security card make sure you use the name that is on the card when you file. Congrats on married life.
This advice was prepared based on our understanding of the tax law in effect at the time it was written as it applies to the facts that you provided. Click on my profile to read more.
Errol Quinn
Enrolled Agent
Master Tax AdvisorDo married couples have to file taxes together?
As the accountant says, you can file jointly or separately. However, this decision has a lot of impact on the amount of taxes you'll owe.
The vast majority of married couples are much better off filing jointly. That's because you lose access to a number of tax breaks if you file separately. Also, in filing separately, you have to cooperate closely -- for example, both of you must itemize or neither of you get to.
In fact, the main reason for filing separately are issues of trust or truthfulness -- such as if you suspect your husband is cheating on taxes, and do not want to be implicated.
To be fair, there are a very small number of cases where filing separately also makes your tax bill lower. You can, if you don't mind going to the trouble, figure your taxes both ways (jointly and separately) to compare. My wife and I do this every year, and of course every year filing jointly wins by a landslide.
You can file married, filing seperately, but..if you have kids, you can claim head of household, file jointly and mainly your tax return would be more back filing married and not seperately. I married last year, we have one kid to claim and went from 1,000.00 back single to 3000.00 jointly...You can go on turbo tax online and do an estimate without really sending it, h and r block also allows that option...put your information in there as married and all the wages, then do it single and see what the difference in the return is.
No, they do not. However you should run your returns both ways and see which is best. If you use married, filing seperate, you forfeit your EIC %26amp; CTC and education credits and yada. If one or the other owes offset money simply include a form 8379 aka Injured Spouse Allocation with your return to protect the refund due the one who owes no offset.
hiiiiieeeee...
no you can file married filing seprate.. its usually better file jointly unless you both have alot to itemize...
No, that's why there's a box that says Married Filing Jointly and another that says Married Filing Separately.
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