Ok, so I'm married now ... am I suppose to feel "different"? (1 Viewer)

[Frederick]

Chris: Ouch!
Marriage penalty? What's that? We were debating on whether or not to file jointly or seperately. Since she makes less than me, I was leaning towards her filing seperately and claiming our son so that she can get more of her money back. We're still getting screwed for being married?
Freddy C.

 

[ikiru]

I have been married for almost a year now and let me tell you, the change here is very noticeable.

My wife and I didnt live together before we got married and when she moved in, WHEW things changed. We bought a bigger bed together, bought living room furniture together, bought a new car for her together (I already had a new car) and are in the process of building a home together. Before, I was just living paycheck to paycheck not even thinking about a house. Because of her, all of our interest accruing debts are payed off and we are putting a lot into savings.

Also, I have a new best friend in her and I really miss her when she is not around. This is the biggest evidence for me that things have changed. Before, I lived by myself and I would have plenty to keep me from going insane. When she goes away on business trips, its really weird going to bed and her not being there.

Being married has been a big life changer for me.

I have one question, I dont know what its like for other people who live with each other for years and then end up getting married. I was wondering how they perceive marriage. Since they already live together and are enjoying the fruits of marriage, what is the point of marriage? Is it for tax reasons? To fend off pushy parents? To be able to live guilt free? Assurance? Insurance? Health benefits? I can see that if this is the case, then getting married wouldnt be a great change. But in this case, why is it necessary? Just wondering...

-ikiru

 

[Stacie]

Ikiru,

As I said above, my husband and I lived together for nearly four years before getting married, and so getting married wasn't a huge change for us. Why did we do it? Well, we almost didn't bother. But there are too many things that may become important eventually -- health insurance, having the state view you as a family -- that we decided we would do it.

I'd like to say that pushy parents had nothing to do with it, but that isn't totally true. While all of our parents were cool with us living together (The fact that we were in our mid-late 20s and had been on our own for a number of years helped), there was still a heavy expectation that sooner or later we would get married "for real."

One of the nice side benefits has been that when you're married, people never make wrong assumptions about the permanency of your relationship. Even after we'd been living together 3+ years and had totally combined our finances, made major purchases together, were totally part of each other's families, and were about to buy a house together, we still got the attitude (not from close friends or family) that we were just "playing house." We weren't, and we aren't, and our little piece of paper from the state didn't change that a bit. But being "officially" married makes a big difference in how many people perceive you as a couple.

Stacie

 

[Chris Lock]

> you still pay the marriage penalty regardless of whether or not you file jointly or seperately
Not all couples. Some will pay less by getting married. If one spouse works & the other doesn't, they'll get a decent cut.
Congress passed a law to get rid of the penalty a few years ago, but somebody vetoed it.
Isn't marriage enough of a penalty?

 

[nolesrule]

The marriage penalty, which is supposed to go away eventually, only applies if you take the Standard Deduction.

In 2001, the Standard Deduction was as follows:

Single - $4550
Married, Filing jointly - $7600
Married, filing seperately - $3,800

As you can see, a married couple had $3050 less in Standard Deduction than 2 single people. multiply that number by your tax bracket percentage to see how much more you pay. The 2 most common:

15% - $457.50
27% - $823.50

Filing separately will only help if one person in the couple by themselves has enough itemized deductions to exceed the standard deduction of filing jointly and the other person does not have enough itemized deductions to exceed the standard deduction for filing separately. In that case, the couple would pay less by filing seperately because they would get half the joint standard deduction, plus all the itemized amount that would exceed the joint standard deduction.

Make sense?

 

[Pamela Langley]

How can any government which purports to value, and seeks to encourage, family life make such bizarre tax laws as you have been describing? I don't wish to speak out of turn, not being a US citizen and all, but does anyone know how the US government justifies this state of affairs?
My country's government does some truly insane things with it's tax laws, but it's stance on the family usually seemed to make sense to me. It's a long time since I was married, but it certainly used to be true here in the UK that you got a bigger tax allowance as a married man living with his spouse and the wife was taxed as a single person. I believe that now they are each taxed as single persons, but if your other half doesn't use up all their tax allowance they can pass the balance on to their spouse. This isn't possible if you aren't actually married to your partner, so getting married actually pays in certain circumstances.
Assuming it is a good idea in the first place, of course!

 

[Paul Jenkins]

US tax law rarely, if ever, makes sense. That is why there are so many reforms put up every year.

As an FYI, the marriage "penalty" hasn't really been a "penalty" until the two wage-earner household. If one person works while the other stays at home, there is no "penalty".

 

[Stephen Orr]

My wife and I celebrated our 21st anniversary this year, and right now, we're facing empty nest syndrome. My son, who turned 18 today, is leaving for college just one month.

As far as the relationship between my wife and I, it gets better with each passing year.

 

[Holadem]

I always thought also that there were very obvious tax advantages to being married - goverment wanting to promote family. This surprising indeed.

--
Holadem

 

[Philip Hamm]

I always thought also that there were very obvious tax advantages to being married - goverment wanting to promote family. This surprising indeed.

Dependants aka children mean a big tax deduction. However, being married and childless means squat, or more precisely, if both work, penalty. Perhaps the government is promoting family this way.

 

[Danny R]

As an FYI, the marriage "penalty" hasn't really been a "penalty" until the two wage-earner household. If one person works while the other stays at home, there is no "penalty".
Yup, thats right. In some cases there is actually a substantial bonus, where the married couple gets more than two singles living together.
The whole marriage penalty thing is just a coincidence of our tax laws treating two people as one income, which with combined incomes puts more of their money into a taxable situation. The closer each of your incomes are to each other, the larger the "penalty". If one person earns all the dough, then they get a "bonus" (with the standard being what two individuals making the same combined income as the couple)
Thus far all the legislation that has been considered getting rid of the "marriage penalty" also incidentally gives some tax payers an even larger bonus as well.
The ONLY way to really get rid of this is to treat all tax payers as "individuals". However I've yet to hear of any politician seriously propose that, because it would totally destroy any tax advantage to marriage.
(trying to state only facts, and avoid any political opinion)