What Are the Benefits of Joint Tax Returns?

If you were married anytime before midnight on the most recent New Year's Eve, then you have two options for filing the previous year's taxes: married filing separately or married filing jointly. This option is only available for married persons and does not apply to couples intending to get marriage or living together, regardless of the length of time they have spent together.

History

Taxing the income of a person, couple, business or corporation is a modern world innovation. Taxes have been collected for centuries in the form of the first crops of the field or the heftiest livestock of the herd. It wasn't until the year 10 when a Chinese Emperor Wang Mang instituted the first income tax requiring 10 percent of the profits of an individual. Income tax has evolved to fit the demand's of the country it is instituted in. The tax rate has changed numerous times throughout the history of the United States, and there's new guidelines to follow each year when filling out your taxes.

Benefits

Filing your taxes jointly or separately is a choice that belongs solely to the married couple; there are no restrictions governing who can file in either way. Filing jointly offers the benefit that a couple will receive a better tax return than if they were to file separately. The reason for a larger tax return when filing jointly is that a married couple applies for more deductions and more tax credits and suffers a lower tax rate than a single tax payer.

Misconceptions

Filing a joint tax return does not always guarantee you will receive the maximum return if you are married. Tax professionals and tax preparation software allow you to file your return both ways to compare the two before submitting, allowing you to choose the better of the two returns. Factors, such as college tuition and debt incurred by one of the spouses before the marriage, are things you will need to consider before filing jointly.

Warnings

From year to year, you may decide in which way you wish to file your income taxes. If you begin filing jointly, you are free to file separately at any time. Before you decide to file jointly, keep in mind that any grievances owed the government by one spouse becomes a shared debt between the couple when taxes are filed jointly. If taxes are owed when a marriage ends, both parties will remain responsible for payment. Another thing you should keep in mind before filing jointly is that your return will be a shared return, given to you as a couple, regardless of who may have had the higher income. Couples in such a situation should discuss beforehand how the return will be spent or divided before taxes are filed.

Considerations

In order to file jointly, a heterosexual couple must be married. Common law marriages and domestic partnerships do not constitute a legal marriage and such couples may not file a joint tax return. Widows and widowers may file a joint tax return solely for the year in which their spouse passed away; in following years, they will file independently unless they are to marry again.