I got married in Jan2017 and I did not declare the change in my marital status to the company and then I left the company in Oct-17.How can I get the difference refunded?

[yalcin77]

I got married in January 2017 and I did not declare that I got married to the company I was working in 2017 so my pay was made always based on single marital status. I worked for that company until October 2017 and then I started to work for another company in October 2017 where I declared my up to date martial status as married and my payroll was made according to that. How can I get the difference paid from that first 9 months as tax return? 

[Lisa995]

You file the tax return as married, doesn't matter what you claimed on the W4 at work.  Any over withholding will be refunded on the tax return when you file it.

[VolvoGirl]

Your status at work doesn’t have to match your tax return.  I’m married but claim Single at work.  If they took out too much you will get it back when you fill out your tax return.  Are you filing a joint tax return with your spouse?  When you both have income you may need to have extra withholding taken out so it may have been a good thing not to change it.

[yalcin77]

Hi, thank you very much for quick answers. I started to put all information as written on my W2 forms to TurboTax platform but it did not bring any extra refund from that period, so I stopped and did not file yet. Will that extra withholding be added in a different process when I file my tax declaration to IRS?  Should not I see that extra withholding online when I entered required information?

[yalcin77]

we are not filing a joint tax return, we will do separately.

[VolvoGirl]

You don’t see it separately.  It’s just withholding in box 2 like any other withholding.  You enter all your income and withholding for both of you and either get a refund or tax due on the whole total.  It’s not broken down by jobs or time periods or status.

[Anita01 · Accepted solution]

No, if you are filing married separate, you won't see a larger refund due to your W-4 Single withholdings.  That's because when you file separately you are subject to the same tax rate as a Single person.  It's a good thing you were withheld at the single rate during the year or you might have owed quite a lot in your return.

You're choosing a filing status that is not at all beneficial to you, compared to married joint.  Unless you have a specific reason for filing separate, you should consider the joint filing with a much lower tax rate.

[yalcin77]

Thank you very much for the clarification, now it makes sense. My wife has some personal liabilities coming from her student loans, that is why unfortunately we need to make it separately.

[Anita01]

You might want to consider filing jointly with an 8379 injured spouse form.

[yalcin77]

Would that prevent IRS from helming the refunds? My apologies for many questions, I am not very familiar with the process, I will try to google meantime to understand this 8379 injured spouse form. Is this something I can handle on TurboTax platform as well?