Filing jointly is almost always best if you both can agree and is allowed even if you don't live together at all.
Is it better for a married
couple to file jointly or separately?
Generally, filing jointly
will give you a bigger refund or less taxes due. When you file separately, your
tax rate is higher and you won't be able to claim:
·
Education
benefits
·
Earned
Income Credit (EIC)
·
Child
and Dependent Care Credit (usually)
·
Adoption
Credit (usually)
·
The same benefit married filing jointly couples get for personal
exemptions, itemized
deductions, the Child
Tax Credit, and capital
losses (all
of these deductions are reduced by half)
·
Itemized deductions if your spouse has already claimed the
standard deduction, or the other way around.
On top of that, if you live
in the community property states of Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana,
Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, or Wisconsin, you have to deal with community
property allocations and adjustments, which adds extra work and
complexity to your tax preparation chores.
The main reason you'd want
to file separately is to protect yourself from inaccurate tax information
reported by your spouse, or in cases where your spouse refuses to file a joint
return (or refuses to file, period) and you don't want to get in trouble.
Also, when you file
separately, your refund cannot be seized to pay off your spouse's debts.
However, filing jointly as an innocent or injured spouse can head off refund
seizures as well.
With all that in mind, you
can try it both ways to see which filing status works out better for the both
of you. If you do this, also consider your state return; in some cases, the
taxes saved on the state return more than makes up for the money lost on the
federal, or vice-versa.
Tip: Only taxpayers who were still legally
married as of December 31, 2016 are able to file as marrieds, whether jointly
or separately.
Related
Information:
·
How
can we compare married filing jointly with married filing separately?
·
How
do I switch from filing jointly to filing separately?
·
Form
8379, Injured Spouse Allocation
·
Innocent
Spouse Relief
GEN83639
-
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