The Plunge Blog

What's the exact opposite of chocolate and peanut butter, you know, two great things that go great together? 

Two awful things that go awful together: wedding planning and taxes.

A fairly informative (if a touch dry) article in the Wall Street Journal about how getting married impacts your taxes.

From the Journal:

Couples have two filing-status options, "married filing jointly" or "married filing separately." In most cases, married filing jointly is the better choice, tax experts say. "There's a big myth in terms of married filing separately providing a benefit. Much of that has been eliminated," Mr. Steber says.

Generally, for "the vast majority of couples out there, it doesn't make sense to file married filing separately," says Bob Meighan, a certified public accountant and vice president at Intuit's TurboTax.

That said, there are cases when filing separately makes sense. For instance, if one spouse has relatively high medical bills and relatively low income, it might be the best option...

Whooo!  We know, we know, that's some enthralling stuff.  Happily, it's mostly in synch with our own advice in this article: Death and Taxes. And marriage.

We offer some answers to Frequently Asked Questions.

[You] Does getting married mean I pay lower taxes or higher taxes?

[Us.] It depends.

Oh, come on. Give it to me straight.

I know, you hate that answer. But it really does depend. Generally speaking, there are more financial advantages to being married than single. You can pool health insurance. You split groceries. You share the cost of rent or mortgages--

--No shit. But I'm asking about taxes.

How about slowing down on the caffeine, okay? We're getting there. The root of the issue is something called the Marriage Penalty.

Sounds familiar. What is it exactly?

Two things. 1) It's an inevitable consequence of our tax system. 2) Marriage is your penalty for loving this woman. But we'll focus on the first issue. Let's say you make exactly $80,000

Entire article here:  Death and taxes. And marriage.

And you'll find the entire WSJ article here.