Tax brackets will change once you go from married filing jointly to head of household.
Q-2: Can registered domestic partners or same-sex spouses whose marriage is recognized under state law file federal tax returns using a married filing jointly or married filing separately status?
Married filing jointly or separately?
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Matters are a little less strange for married couples filing jointly.
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But with the vast majority of married couples filing jointly, some spouses are bound to run off, lie about their off-the-books income, wind up in trouble, or otherwise leave their spouse holding the bag.
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Registered domestic partners cannot file using a married filing separately or jointly filing status, because they are not spouses as defined by federal law.
Likewise , same-sex partners who are married under state law may not file using a married filing separately or jointly filing status because federal law does not treat same-sex partners as spouses.
The alternative to filing jointly is to file as married filing separately.
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In her defense, Bronstein argued that the intent of the statute in cutting the limitations in half for married filing separately taxpayers was to accommodate situations where the husband and wife jointly paid mortgage interest but chose to file separate returns.
Although a married couple, particularly one with roughly equal incomes, will sometimes pay more filing jointly then if they were single, as I observed in my post on marriage equality, they will almost always come to a higher total using married filing separately, which is the only other alternative if they are of different genders.
The tax law gradually increased the standard deduction for married taxpayers who file jointly to an amount equal to twice the standard deduction of persons filing a single return, resembling the original 1948 bill that allowed two full deductions for married couples regardless of the level of income.
An example: John and Mary married in 2011, filed jointly for that year, and had their marriage annulled after the filing deadline.
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