Has any other newlywed here been affected by the marriage tax?
I can't believe it - Every year I usually get a refund of about $900 and was expecting the same this year as my income has not changed and I was eligable for some educational tax breaks due to being a graduat student.
My husband and I did our taxes this weekend - first we tried doing it seperately and he ended up oweing $1000 and I ended up oweing $50 and I couldn't take advantage of the tax breaks because we weren't filing jointly.
Then we did jointly and ended up owing $400
Its better than $1000 I know, but I can't believe how we are being penalized because we got married. Any advice on how to deal with this or what to do to avoid this situation in future tax years?
shelzyp
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Re: Marriage Tax
Also Bush has been talking about repealing the marriage penalty, but we'll see if he actually does!
chmlengr
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Re: We got money back
Ooh, we were different, so there is hope for some. This was the first year we filed as a married couple, and we got enough money back to buy our dining room set and our living room couches. How? We were able to subtract the interest we paid on our house mortgage (we bought in 2000, so it's only our second year of payments). Plus we sold some stocks at a loss to pay for our wedding.
However, hubby keeps telling me he got back twice as much last year, so in essence we were penalized!
Olgaki
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Re: We got money back
This has been such a good review for the CPA =))))
Cira
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Re: We got money back
Rob itemized everything! So, in the end, we wound up paying for state and getting from federal - we got back $400 total. Not bad - I thought we were going to have to pay for sure. Next year, will be a better year, because of the house and let's see what Bush is able to pull off with this marriage penalty!
VickiC
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Re: We got money back
We're getting money back too. I claim 0 at a higher single rate, and have just switched my witholding to $25. My DH is a free-lancer, so I'm taking out the extra money to pay his SS taxes as well so we won't have to send in estimated tax money.
Teri
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Re: We got money back
DH itemizes as well - we both usually get a lot back, and this year was basically the same. We didn't get AS much back, but still a decent chunk of change
Jen T.
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Re: We got money back
Thanks everyone for the advice and commesurating.....Hopefully we'll do better next year.
