Question

My husband started a business in 2017 with his business partner. I have nothing to do with it. Should we still file jointly?

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
June 1, 2019
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TurboTax Deluxe Online

Employee

Almost certainly the answer is "Yes", unless you think this new business is engaged in illegalities or you think your husband is cheating on his taxes. From a straight-forward "tax benefit" standpoint the vast, vast majority of married couples do better filing jointly than separately. If you use the desktop version of TurboTax you can directly compare by preparing one income tax return as "jointly" and two income tax returns as "separate"; then add the income tax liability of the two separate income tax returns and compare that to the joint filing income tax return.

Tom Young

Hal_Al

Employee

Your spouse having a business, with a partner, does not change the benefits of filing his personal return jointly with his spouse.
Most business partnerships are pass thru entities. That is, the partnership reports the profit or loss to each of the partners, who report it on his personal tax return.