Tax and Marriage question

First of All Congrats!

I'm an accountant...file married Chief

 

My wife and I file Jointly-Turbo Tax has not done us wrong. Worked when we had the kid. Altho this year bought a house- We might be needing to find a tax professional this year.

For the folks who got boned by changing their Marital Status to "Married" and having less withheld- You can change the withholding percentages any time you want with a W4 worksheet.

 

lots of good info. thanks guys

 

Use turbotax.com. You can do everything up to filing for free. So that way you can play it both ways once you have all your info. We have 3 kids to claim, so it benefits us to file jointly I think. Mainly because I can do "Married, 11" on the W4 so they don't take as much out of each check, and still get money back at the end of the year.

But then we also have those 3 kids to claim as deductions. What I'd like to know is, how to setup my wife's W4 so she gets more money each week (less taken out for taxes), but we still don't owe money in the end. We get around $5k back each year due to the kids, so I KNOW we could change her filing to keep more money in her check each week. But I claim her and the kids on my W4 so.....

 

Roughly: You just need to figure out your allowances versus your withholding currently.
http://taxes.about.com/od/preparingyourtaxes/ht/W4.htm will help

 

Nah, turbo tax will handle that too. There are several deduction things as far as the house goes like mortgage tax, improvements, etc. Wife does it and hooks us up every year...sure helps to be able to throw a stanby generator, water filter and new patio and stuff like that into the mix. It helps a good bit on deductions. We don't have the kids to claim so we get it back by adorning the crib with useful goodies.

 

We ALWAYS did better filing jointly (married) and I would always prepare the taxes both ways just to be sure.

 

We used to use TurboTax and it worked great for typical home-owners including stocks/dividends and all that crap. My husband did the taxes and he liked using it. In terms of bank accounts & dividends/interest, it would automatically pull the information from the outside sources (or something like that).

We don't use Turbotax anymore but only because his employer has an accountant that does it for us (company paid).

 

X2

 

In general, it's probably better to file married, joint. It depends on your taxable income and deductions though. Because our system is progressive, once you reach a certain threshold, the income beyond that threshold is taxed at a higher rate. Here are the brackets for 2009 just to give you an idea: http://www.moneybluebook.com/2009-federal-income-tax-brackets-official-irs-tax-rates/


I would think that Turbotax should allow you to do multiple what-if scenarios to find the best option for you.

I made a simple spreadsheet based on those income brackets that could allow you to see some what if scenarios.

If I enter 67000 for one person's taxable income and 8000 for the other (just a part time employee), it's better to file joint. The tax for married filing seperate was $13102, whereas the tax for filing joint was $10535.

If I enter $40,000 for both incomes, the tax is about the same either way ($8165).

Other deductions could affect how you choose to file as well (e.g.student loan interest has income limits)

 

X2 and congrats on the marriage!!!

 

^^^^^
THIS