Q. Should I change to Married Filing Separately (MFS)?
A. Simple answer: No. Married Filing Jointly (MFJ) is ALMOST always better. But the only way to be sure is prepare returns both ways and compare. That is more easily done with TurboTax (TT) download software than with the online versions.
This tool may be helpful https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/calculators/taxcaster/?s=1.
You mentioned starting social security. A common error is believing that filing MFS will keep your SS from being taxed. As @NCperson points out, the tax code specifically prevents that, by dropping the income threshold (for bring taxed) to $0 for those filing MFS.
