Our First Tax Return… How Romantic?

Our First Tax Return… How Romantic?

April 15th, 2008 @ 5:55 pm by Mrs. Radish

Today is April 15th and you all know what that means… taxes! For the Radishes, this is also a new “marriage milestone” for us. This year marked our very first tax return that we filed together as a married couple. Maybe we should frame it or add it to our scrapbook

(the Radish family with a copy of our tax return… unfortunately, we could NOT claim the cat as a dependent)

Anyway, this was one of those funny moments since our wedding that I was like, “Wow, we are REALLY married now!” We’ve been together for so long and we lived together for about two years before we got married, so sometimes married life isn’t much different than non-married life was.

But there’s nothing like shared tax liability to make your union feel official!

Oh, and by the way, I always assumed that you would get a better deal on taxes once you’re married, but in our case that did not prove to be true. We used the “married filing separately” status because it got a slightly larger (though still meager) tax return than filing jointly… but I would’ve gotten a really big return if I was still single. Maybe next year?

Did everyone get their taxes out yet? For all the brides-to-bee, are you looking forward to changing your filing status? For the married readers, did your first married tax time work out as you expected?

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19 Responses to “Our First Tax Return… How Romantic?”

Hostess

suzanno (message) 2,694 posts, Sugar bee

I am actually not looking forward to this experience next year - although I have no particular reason to say that. FI owns his own small company, and so has a tax accountant do his taxes. So we will forward a copy of my 2007 taxes to her sometime later this year, and have her tell us the best thing to do about filing next year. If we file jointly, I won’t actually have to do anything… if we file separately, I assume I will continue to do my own taxes. It will be interesting, anyway. We expect our taxes to go up, but that should be offset in the real-income world by the savings associated with maintaining one house instead of two (keeping my fingers crossed).

4/15/08 @ 6:01 pm (reply)

Guest

JenniferB

This is something I am soo not looking forward to as a married lady. Only because I filed my taxes in January, as soon as I had everything I needed and received my return the first week of February. The FI? I just got off the phone with him and he was in line at the post office. Arghh. I’m going to have to remedy his tax-procrastination next year!

4/15/08 @ 6:11 pm (reply)

Bee

Mr. Bee (message) 1,562 posts, Bumble bee

mr. bee does all the work since we joint file, so it’s great for me.

4/15/08 @ 6:29 pm (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Bee (message) 3,261 posts, Sugar bee

oops i was signed in as mr. bee. the above comment was by me.

4/15/08 @ 6:30 pm (reply)

Member

Angel (message) 1,252 posts, Bumble bee

We sat down and did ours last night. Turns out if we filed seperately versus jointly it would be a four dollar difference, but then again we don’t own a home (does that make any difference?) and don’t have any kids. Yeah, our cat doesn’t count either…rats.

4/15/08 @ 6:45 pm (reply)

Guest

Christine

Unfortunately, my DH had tax liability and I had a huge ($4000+) return. It decreased “OUR” return by about a thousand, but it was still nice to finally be “married filing jointly”.

4/15/08 @ 6:49 pm (reply)

Guest

Loaf

It would really help me to be able to file as married once I have a wedding, but since the US hates the gays….not an option. It would be better for both of us, too….

maybe some day we will have this right.

4/15/08 @ 6:59 pm (reply)

Guest

tina

getting married usually doesn’t give much of a tax benefit because unless one of you makes significantly more than the other, you usually get bumped up to the next tax bracket with two incomes! huge myth for everyone that getting married gives you tax benefits. it actually makes me mad when people complain about same-sex unions not getting the same “tax benefits” as married unions. as the radishes and many people above have noted, filing separately usually gets you a few more dollars.

grr. taxes.

4/15/08 @ 8:04 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Gingerbread (message) 647 posts, Busy bee

@Loaf: I should post about this. If the federal government recognized our relationship we would have gotten almost $7000 back! crazy, huh?

4/15/08 @ 8:28 pm (reply)

10.

Bee

Miss Gingerbread (message) 647 posts, Busy bee

Oops, I should have written $4000 from federal taxes…but that’s still quite a chunk of change.

4/15/08 @ 8:32 pm (reply)

11.

Guest

Amy H.

If you anything make close to what your spouse makes, there is a tax penalty for being married — no tax benefit! I am so not looking forward to filing as married (either jointly or separately — it’s still much worse than filing single) next year.

4/15/08 @ 9:13 pm (reply)

12.

Guest

Annie

Wow @ Miss Gingerbread and yes, it is nice to have a benefit to being married.

Btw, you guys are so cute!! And a gorgeous little cat too

4/16/08 @ 7:51 am (reply)

13.

Member

jilian (message) 372 posts, Helper bee

I know my hubby was glad to be filing jointly because he no longer had to deal with it. I handle all the bills, budgeting, balancing, and taxes It is definitely a ‘wow, we’re married!’ moment while filling it out - for both of us. We got a decent return (not that that’s good) - not sure if it’s because we’re married and we own a house. Plus our W2’s didn’t have either of our statuses changed to married. I’ve tried to adjust my withholdings - but I think now their not taking enough out I’m sure it’ll take a year or two to achieve the right balance - then we’ll start having kids and everything will be thrown off again!

4/16/08 @ 9:14 am (reply)

14.

Member

GetMarried4Less (message) 915 posts, Busy bee

i am looking forward to it….only bc this time yesterday i was staring at my computer screen, eyes glazed over, dealing with my taxes.

i didn’t used to proscrastinate, but since i began to mess with my withholdings, i have found myself owing….a lot more than i can pay.

so i am looking forward to next year, bc FH has an accountant friend do his taxes. although i am the bill/budget manager in our relationship, i am looking forward to handing this over!

4/16/08 @ 11:31 am (reply)

15.

Guest

sally

We got totally scr*wed by the AMT (grrrrrr). I too thought being married brought tax benefits, but we got less this year than in past years when we filed seperately.

I knew we should never have gotten married!!! (just kidding)

4/16/08 @ 12:10 pm (reply)

16.

Guest

LauraB

Marriage is a massive tax penalty and partly why we waited so long to tie the knot (well, why dh waited).

Our ONLY saving grace was that we bought a house the same year we got married so we recognized the homeowner deduction.

4/16/08 @ 12:34 pm (reply)

17.

Guest

Amy H.

I should clarify that when I’m complaining about the marriage penalty — it’s really just about income tax (and only for marrieds who make closer to the same amount of money versus having one primary breadwinner). Of course there are other tax benefits to legal marriage — most particularly being able to obtain Social Security benefits based on your married status and being able to avoid certain inheritance and estate taxes (like the step-up in basis for community property upon the death of one spouse in community property states). Anyway — just didn’t mean to sound like I was saying that ***not*** being able to be legally married in the US is a good thing! There are dozens and dozens of legal benefits that should be available to all couples, IMHO.

4/16/08 @ 4:12 pm (reply)

18.

Guest

Loaf

@tina: Well, Tina, that’s why I said “for us” it would be easier. Why do you presume that you know the financial status of my partner and I? As Miss Gingerbread said, sometimes it can be thousands of dollars more expensive for gay couples to file separately. But of course I’m so sorry it “makes you really mad.” It makes ME really mad when people like you think people like me need to shut up and stop complaining.

4/17/08 @ 8:59 am (reply)

19.

Guest

gail

How cute you are! why isn’t the cat wearing a matching shirt too? By the way if you have a baby you would get a dependent credit…isn’t that a good idea?

4/20/08 @ 11:53 pm (reply)