Got married last month and we are wondering if we should file separately next year bc of our situation.
I make about 70k a year before deductions and have almost no student loans (about to pay off the last 5k of federal student loans) and my new spouse is a full time student and part time worker making about 16k a year with no student loans (has a college savings account from parents).
We have no other debt nor do we own a house or new cars or anything. Spouse is switching to insurance thru my work instead of marketplace, so starting this paycheck I'm paying their insurance.
From this basic information would it be more beneficial for us to file together or separately? Would appreciate any input!
Edit: forgot to mention/focus on the fact she got some sort of insurance discount (Medicaid? Id have to go pull messages for sure this is off the top of my head) and we don't know if filing together is going to result in us having to pay a chunk of that back or if that doesn't affect it either way
Newly married, should we file separately or together next year?
byu/lord0fmind intax
Posted by lord0fmind
5 Comments
From this info, together would be better.
Was she getting subsidies? If so that’s going to be painful. I went through that with my husband when I got married. She may have to pay some of it back.
It is better to file MFJ in well over 95% of situations.
Most professional tax software will automatically create a worksheet calculation that compares the tax implications of filing both ways
Whatever your marital status is on December 31st is your marital status for the whole year. You will have to file either Married Filing Jointly or Married Filing Separately for 2025. This may affect her medical subsidies as well as any Pell grants or other government help.