Hellooo, me and my fiancé (wedding day 05/29/23) have a pretty big income difference. I’m about $180k and he’s maybe <15k (grad student). Would it make sense for us to get married on paper before the end of the year to save on taxes? If we do that does it only save me taxes on my paychecks following the paper marriage or for all the ones prior?

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nozzery t1_iugz0tb wrote on October 31, 2022 at 6:59 AM

The whole year as long as you're married by 12/31

PetraLoseIt t1_iuhbzrc wrote on October 31, 2022 at 10:17 AM

If you marry at any point during the year, you can file "married filing jointly" for the full tax year. It would save you a lot on taxes this year. It is of course also a legally binding marriage, meaning it's still a pretty big commitment already.

SpiritualQuokka t1_iugxrvz wrote on October 31, 2022 at 6:40 AM

There are plenty of tax estimators out there, run a couple with your estimated income and decide if you want to consider getting married this year for tax benefits. Keep in mind that this "paper marriage" is an actual legal marriage, and will affect more than your taxes.

If you are married on 12/31/2022, then you will file as married for 2022. Taxes aren't levied on a per paycheck basis. If you want to change how much is withheld from your paycheck you will need to fill out a new W4 and give it to your employer.

TwoOneFive215 t1_iuh1g2u wrote on October 31, 2022 at 7:36 AM

just like having kids, marriage should also happens EOY to save money but still get the full year tax benefits

ImplicitEmpiricism t1_iuhvrm3 wrote on October 31, 2022 at 1:38 PM

If you’re married at 11:59 pm on December 31 you’re married for the full year.

Get both your tax forms for last year and a copy of TurboTax and rerun the numbers as if you were married. If you’re just W2 employees do the same thing this year with your most recent pay stub. If it saves you money and you’re comfortable no one will call off the wedding, just do it.

My wife and I did something similar. We had a wedding planned for June, I ran the numbers in November and realized it would save us $9000 in taxes if we got married before the end of the year. We had a small civil ceremony after Christmas with our family in attendance, then did the real wedding the following summer. Used the tax refund for our honeymoon.

Workdawg t1_iuhw1ke wrote on October 31, 2022 at 1:41 PM

I'm not sure why 3/4 comments right now are talking about how the marriage applies for the whole year as long as you are married by 12/31, because it sounds like you know that.

As the only helpful comment from /u/SpiritualQuokka says, there are plenty of tax estimators out there, so you should really try a couple of those out to see how much you would benefit. A very simple look at the tax brackets for 2022 show you barely break into the 32% bracket as a single filer, but would barely make it into the 24% bracket if you were married. I plugged your numbers into this calc using MN for state tax.

Single:

180k = 57716

15k = 1525

Total = 59241

Married:

195k = 51659

So, getting married would save you about 6k in taxes.

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yeah87 t1_iujqt4m wrote on October 31, 2022 at 9:15 PM

If your goal is to save on taxes, then yes, you should get married.

Withholding is only an estimate that gets reconciled when you do your tax return at the end of the year. So in one sense, yes it will lower your taxes for the months before you get married on paper. But in a more literal sense, you will not get 'corrected' paychecks or money returned early or anything like that.