Should married couples file joint or separate tax returns?

Addy Bink
·4 min read
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(NEXSTAR) — It’s tax season again, with Tax Day only about a month away. If you haven’t filed yet, you may want to double-check your filing status.

Your filing status, which largely depends on your marital status, determines at what rate your income is taxed, the IRS explains. It can also influence how much you owe, the credits you can claim, your standard deduction, and whether you’ll get a refund.

There are five filing statuses, of which you will usually select one:

  • Single

  • Married, filing jointly

  • Married, filing separately

  • Head of household

  • Qualifying surviving spouse

When you filed your first-ever taxes, you likely selected single. This applies to taxpayers who are unmarried, divorced, or legally separated. If you’re unmarried and a qualifying dependent person lived with you through most of 2023, you likely qualify for head of household status.

But, once you are married, your status changes and you and your spouse will have to decide: file jointly, or file separately?

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“It can seem simple. If you’re married, you’re married. If you’re not, you’re not. But it can also be very complicated and if you pick wrong, it can cost you money,” Mark Steber, chief tax information officer for Jackson Hewitt Tax Services tells Nexstar.

Those who mare married and file separately are doing just that — filing their taxes separately from their spouse. It’s not very common, though. According to Steber, about 3.9 million people did so in 2021. For comparison, that’s roughly the population of Los Angeles, or about 2% of the total pool of taxpayers.

The married couple filing separately status has “very, very, very limited utilization,” Steber says, adding that “it doesn’t offer a great deal of tax benefits” and instead can be restrictive.

Steber outlines two scenarios in which filing separately may, however, be beneficial. The first is because the status is the direct opposite of choosing to file jointly.

On a joint return, your income, deductions, and tax liability are combined with your spouse’s. So if your spouse underpaid taxes in 2023, you’re both technically on the hook for paying it back. That tax liability would continue, even if you divorce this year.

By filing separately, “yours is yours and your spouse’s is your spouse’s,” Steber explains.

“If you’re separated, thinking about being separated, you’re getting a divorce but not quite divorced, then married filing separately keeps your stuff separate,” he adds.

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You may also consider filing separately despite being married if you or your spouse has “a funky set of tax facts,” like vastly different incomes or deductions that wouldn’t apply to a joint return.

There are other situations in which you may benefit from filing separately from your spouse. TurboTax points to student loan payments, explaining that if your repayment plan is determined based on the income on your tax return, filing on your own can “keep your payments more manageable.”

By filing separately, you may miss out on certain tax credits you would get while filing jointly, like the Earned Income Tax Credit or the Dependent Care Credit. You may also find yourself ineligible for the standard deduction.

The standard deduction, which reduces the amount of income on which you’re taxed, increased across the board in 2022 (for the 2023 tax year). For married couples filing jointly, it’s $27,700. For those filing separately, it’s only $13,850.

While those deductions do add up (13,850 is half of 27,700), if your spouse itemizes their deductions, you are no longer entitled to the standard deduction, the IRS explains.

There are also some states known as “community property states,” which may also encourage you to file jointly. In these states — Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin — spouses who decide to file their own returns “must report half of the combined community income [income, salaries, payments, real estate] and deductions…on their federal return,” H&R Block explains. Because you have to account for those combined community incomes, filing separately in these states can be more complicated, Steber explains.

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Ultimately, you’re allowed to select whichever filing status fits you and will result in the lowest taxes. If you’re married, you’re most likely best off filing jointly.

If you got married at any point in 2023, even at 11:30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, you can file as married on your taxes. If you weren’t officially married until New Year’s Day, or have gotten married in 2024, you’ll have to wait until 2025 to file jointly (or separately).

Regardless of your filing status, if you’re uncertain about your taxes, Steber recommends seeking out a tax pro. You can also use this interactive tool from the IRS to determine your filing status.

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