Married Filing Jointly Vs Seperately

slowmotax — Sat, 01 Jun 2019 02:39:52 GMT

We were wondering if Filing separately would help by placing us in a lower tax bracket. One Spouse is Military ($46K income) and the other is a 100% disabled vet making just under $26K in SSA benefits. What spurred our question is that when making between $25,000 and $34,000 and filing separate, you may have to pay income tax on up to 50 percent of your benefits. However when filing jointly and make more than 44k combined ....up to 85 percent of your benefits may be taxable.

Taking that into consideration makes me think we should file separately. What other factors must we consider when deciding what would yield the best return?

Married Filing Jointly is usually better, even if one spo...

xmasbaby0 — Sat, 01 Jun 2019 02:39:54 GMT

Married Filing Jointly is usually better, even if one spouse had little or no income. When you file a joint return, you and your spouse will each receive the $4050 personal exemption, plus the married filing jointly standard deduction of $12,600 (add $1250 for each spouse over the age of 65). You are eligible for more credits including education credits, earned income credit, child and dependent care credit, and a larger income limit to receive the child tax credit.

If you choose to file married filing separately, both spouses have to file the same way—either you both itemize or you both use standard deduction. Your tax rate will be higher than on a joint return. Some of the special rules for filing separately include: you cannot get earned income credit, education credits, or deductions for student loan interest. A higher percent of your Social Security benefits may be taxable. In many cases you will not be able to take the child and dependent care credit. If you live in a community property state, you will be required to provide additional information regarding your spouse’s income. If you are using online TurboTax to prepare your returns, you will need to prepare two separate returns and pay twice.

It is not easy to compare MFJ to MFS using online TT but you can do it. Since you only get one return for each account and user ID, you have to use 3 accounts and user ID’s—one for MFJ and two for each of the MFS returns. Compare, choose, and file—and pay—accordingly.

It is much easier to do this comparison using the desktop version of TT installed from a CD or downloaded to your own computer. You pay once for the software and you can prepare multiple returns easily, and it has a “what if” feature that allows comparisons.

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Married Filing Jointly Vs Seperately

Married Filing Jointly is usually better, even if one spo...