Married Filing Jointly or Separately?

[nsallen]

Hello and thank you in advance for reviewing my question.

My wife and I have always “Married filing separately” because we are educators with student loans and have been on Income Based Repayment plans. We both are about to have our student loans forgiven via the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (anticipated in the next month). We were wondering if it would be better to file separately or jointly?

If it matters:

We have two dependent children, a mortgage, two separate HSA accounts through our employers (we have it down so we aren’t going over our contribution limits), and I have a 403B and about $1,000 in a silly Robinhood brokerage account. 

Additionally, what tier of TurboTax should I use/need?

Thanks in advance!

- Long time Turbo tax users

[RobertB4444 · Accepted solution]

Married filing jointly is almost always better for you.  The only reason that you had for filing separately is going away.  Jointly is almost certainly a better way to go.

The same version of TurboTax that you have been using will still work for you.  Your tax return - with the RobinHood account - is the more complicated.  So I would open that and add your wife and any children to that return.

@nsallen