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03-05-2008 | 11:15 AM

#11

MalteseX

Gets Weekends Off

Joined: Jul 2006

Posts: 290

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From: DA-40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freightpuppy

Thanks Led but if it's going to cost me more money to be married, we may just be "domestic partners" for life.

(We are cheap Polish pilots....what do you expect....LOL!)

BTW, no, we are not basing the decision on that....I was just wondering what the financial advantage is since I have heard that but noone has told me what it is.

The financial advantage is for people that are married where one partner makes NO INCOME, very LITTLE income, or significantly less than the other.
Married filing jointly is almost always better than married filing separately (have to run numbers for your situation but the former is better in about 93% of households per IRS website). Single where both work is almost always better than filing married (either jointly or separately).

Also something else to be concerned about when both are pilots is whether you'll be hit with the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax). Basically, if you marry you will pay more.

03-05-2008 | 11:22 AM

#12

MalteseX

Gets Weekends Off

Joined: Jul 2006

Posts: 290

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From: DA-40

Quote:

Originally Posted by FDXer

Tax tables for filing single are significantly higher than filing jointly. I ran the numbers both ways and I find filing jointly works best for me. One of the problems is dividing up the deductions properly so the person in the higher bracket can get a tax break. One might also be subject to AMT sooner when filing taxes as a single. A married couple can do it either way and it only takes a couple of minutes to run some prelim numbers using the single tax tables for both.

I may be misreading your post so I apologize in advance if I am. If you are married you cannot "file either way" as you say in your last sentence. I think you are saying you can either file married (jointly) or file single (for both). You cannot do that. You must either file married jointly or married separately.

I did that once "accidentally" of course--- and the IRS wasn't too pleased. They sent me a nice little letter along with a computation for penalties and interest!!!!

Like I said, I apologize if I read your post wrong---but I put this response on here with my story just in case anyone on here reads it as I did and thinks about "trying" it. It can significantly reduce your taxes (if the IRS doesn't catch it!!)