In a common law marriage, both claimed ourselves and our Son on our I9s(self&son) and put that we are single. Live in S. Carolina. Can we file jointly?

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Live in South Carolina. Claimed ourselves and our son on our I9s. Lived together almost 7 years. 2 year old son. Share bills together etc. Claimed we are single on our I9s as well and my son and myself have Medicaid health insurance. 1) Can we file together on this years tax return?
2) If we are able to file together and do, will it mess up my sons and my health insurance? My fiancé has health insurance through his job.

[Opus 17 · Accepted solution]

You have to decide if you are in a common law marriage or not.  A common law marriage in South Carolina requires 5 factors

1. of legal age for marriage

2. not married to anyone else

3. the mutual intent and understanding to be married.  

4. living together

5. telling other people that you are married.

Filing a joint tax return will certainly satisfy #3 and #5, and if you also meet the other tests, you will be legally married from that point.  However, you must understand that once you have a common law marriage, it is just as legal and forever binding as an "official" marriage, and the only way to split up is with a full blown legal divorce with lawyers and judges and custody orders and alimony and everything else.

If you are married you must file your tax return using one of the married statuses; married filing joint or married filing separately.  Married filing jointly is almost always betters since separate filing has higher tax rates and some deductions and credits are reduced or disallowed.

You don't claim anything on an I-9 form, I think you mean a W-4.  The W-4 is used so that your employer can estimate the correct amount of tax to withhold.  What you put on the W-4 doesn't matter to your tax status that you claim on your tax return except that if you don't have enough tax taken out of your paychecks, you will owe at tax time instead of getting a refund and if you owe a lot, you could also owe late payment penalties.

If you are legally married it will certainly change your eligibility for health insurance.  For one thing, you would be eligible to be covered under the spouse and family provisions of your husband's insurance at work.  For another thing, it would change your family income that might be used to determine your eligibility for CHiP insurance, or medicaid, or any other state benefits.  Typically, if you decide to get married, your spouse will have 30 or 60 days from the date of the marriage to notify their workplace to change their insurance, otherwise you will have to wait until next January 1.

Declaring that you are common law married is a big step, make sure you know what you are doing.  

http://kinglawoffices.com/blog/family-law/shacking-up-or-common-law-married/

http://www.south-carolina-divorce.com/common-law.html