File Separate or Married?

One question I get all the time, "Is it better for me to file Married Filing Separately vs. Married Filing Jointly?" It DEPENDS. The answer I give everyone who asks me a tax question, because it does depend on a lot of other items that go into your return. How much you make, how many kids, if you itemize and without knowing this, I can't tell you a right answer... I can tell you, with the experience I have, more times than not, MFS does not benefit. There are disadvantages to MFS and among them are: Lost Credits - specifically the Childcare expenses & Earned Income Credit. Unless both the spouses live apart for last six months of the year, no one can claim the childcare dependent credit. You will also loose education benefits such as the Tuition & fees deduction and the student loan interest deduction. Another disadvantage is, if one spouse itemizes, the other one must itemize as well. If one spouse takes the standard, the other one must take the standard deduction too. Unless you have a huge amount of itemized deductions, one spouse could itemize lower than the standard deduction. If there is social security involved, a greate percentage of Social Security benefits may be taxable, unless again if spouses lived apart for the entire year. Some reasons to file separately include, but are not limited to: 1.) No joint liability. Each spouse who signs a joint return is responsible for the accuracy of the return as well as the payment of the tax. A spouse who files separately is not responsible for reporting or paying tax on items attributable to the other spouse. 2.) Some couples do pay less tax filing separately. Spouses with similar and almost equal incomes will generally owe the same tax under either filing status unless one spouse has medical expenses, casualty losses or employee business expenses subject to a percentage of AGI. If one spouse has significantly higher income than the other, the couple will generally pay less tax filing jointly. The best advice I can give is run you and your spouse's returns a couple of ways. A) MFJ B) MFS - itemized C) MFS - non-itemized D) If there is a kid involved, claim on one spouses return for B & C and then the other spouse for B & C. Hope this helps!