Most beneficial way to file jointly or separately?

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
January 22, 2025
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I work full time, my husband is retired collects social security and a small pension. We have no dependents or deductions. It seems filing together his Social Security gets added in with my earnings and we owe federal taxes.

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MinhT1

In almost all situations, it is more beneficial to file Married Filing Jointly than Married Filing Separately.

For your specific situation, you can test and compare the 2 scenarios by creating mock accounts in TurboTax.

Please read this TurboTax Help topic for more information.

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Hal_Al

Employee

You may be thinking that filing Married Filing Separately (MFS) is going to save you money, because you won't have to add your spouse’s income to your return. It doesn't work that way. There is a special rule that says Social Security (SS) becomes taxable at zero ($0) other income when Filing as MFS. So your spouse will have to report his SS either way

The doubled standard deduction will usually wipe out most of the spouse’s income, on a joint return. And you will still get to use the lower joint filing tax rates.

Before making a decision to file as MFS, you should run test returns and compare. You can use this tool: https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/calculators/taxcaster/?s=1