Hello all, looking for advice here.
My wife and I are divorcing after 8 years. We have one child who is 12. I have W2 income around 65k and 1099 income around 16k, she has W2 income around 115k and negligible 1099. I would like to figure out how much of my tax liability she has paid each year we filed jointly to pay her back. Can anyone help me to accomplish that? I’m happy to provide any further details, really just looking for a process or a tool that could help me get a number for each year.
Thanks in advance.
Posted by izzy_pgh
5 Comments
To figure out how much of your taxes your wife paid, get copies of your joint tax returns, look at your total tax liability, check how much was withheld from both your incomes, and then use your income percentages to estimate each person’s share. If it’s complicated I can break it down for you
I could see you two trying to figure out this “fairness” calculation for last year’s taxes. But it’s a bit extreme to figure it out for 8 years.
But looking at this year: have you already filed a tax return? Did you file jointly or separately? How much did you have withheld/pay in quarterly estimated payments, and how much did she? What was line 24 (total tax) on your return?
There’s not a straightforward answer to this. When you file a joint tax return, there is no your tax versus her tax. All the income is added together and the tax on that is assessed. You could have each filed separate returns caramel, but the total paid if you add up, those two amount amounts is certainly going to be greater than what you ended up actually paying as a couple.
It really doesn’t work like that. The point of filing jointly is that the income belongs to both of you (and that a spouse doing unpaid domestic labor isn’t worth less). How you split that shared money in a divorce shouldn’t depend in any way on past taxes.
If you insist on putting an exact monetary value on 8 years of marriage, then one approach would be to fill out tax returns to see how much you would each have owed if single. Split the child credit and decide on a fair split of any other credits and deductions.
Why are you paying her again? This seems crazy.