First and foremost, congrats on the upcoming wedding!
To answer your question, the main change will be in the Filing Status used, which can also impact several other areas of the tax return.
The filing status used will be either Married Filing Joint (MFJ) or Married Filing Separate (MFS). Generally speaking, MFJ usually is better than filing separate. The IRS rules are that your filing status is determined as of the last day of the year - so if you are legally married as of December 31, then you are considered married for the entire year.
The amount of tax assessed on your income is dependent in part on your filing status. Going from the Head of Household filing status to the Married Filing Joint filing status, less of the income is taxed at higher tax rates. For example, if the only income for the year was from a W2 job, and Taxable Income is $50,000, under the Head of Household filing status the 2022 tax (before credits and withholdings) would be $5,707. But if the filing status were Married Filing Joint, the tax would be $5,589.
The second big change is in the Standard Deduction. The Standard Deduction for 2022 is $19,400 for Head of Household, but is $25,900 for Married Filing Jointly. So for a taxpayer that is taking the Standard Deduction, the amount of the deduction increases.
Those will be the main items that change when a taxpayer becomes married. Of course, there are other tax credits and benefits that may be impacted, based on phaseout amounts and other limitations.
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