Tax Tips: Married Filing Separately is Married Filing Stupidly

Most of us live our lives as they come, and then hope for the best at tax time. Sometimes our lives are more messy than we (or the IRS) would like. Enter the option for “Married Filing Separately”. As a married person,I had been curious about this in the past, and wondered if it would give me better results than “Married Filing Jointly”. The short answer is: no.

Let me give you a disclaimer. A professional who is familiar with your individual situation may advise you differently. By all means, take the advice of a professional you knows you personally over mine! However, for the majority of Americans, “Married Filing Separately” means “Married Filing Stupidly”.

Sometimes, you can’t help it. Most of the people I see that need to file separately, do so as a matter of reality, rather than of choice. If you cannot contact your spouse, or if your spouse is too hostile to agree on anything (much less a tax return) you are still responsible for filing taxes. So you must file as “Married Filing Separately”. Then your spouse is still responsible to file his or her own taxes, but at least you have fulfilled your obligation and filed your own taxes. However, this comes at a severe cost. Here is a list of the things you are giving up by filing as “Married Filing Separately”:

You cannot claim the standard deduction if your spouse itemizes deductions; you must either also itemize your deductions, or in a few cases take half the standard deduction.
You cannot take the child and dependent care expenses credit
You cannot take the earned income credit
You cannot (in most cases) take the credit or exclusion for adoption expenses
You cannot take the education credits (Hope and Lifetime Learning)
You cannot deduct interest paid on a qualified student loan
You cannot exclude interest income from qualified US savings bonds used for higher education expenses
You cannot take the credit for the elderly or disabled
You cannot take the tuition and fees deduction
You may have to include, as taxable income, more of social security benefits than would be included on a joint return
You cannot roll over amounts from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA

To add insult to injury, you must still provide the full name and social security number of your legal spouse.

One final note, if you are afraid you are doomed to be “Married Filing Stupidly” is that in some cases a married tax payer can be “considered unmarried” and may be able to file as “Head of Household”. This can apply even if they are not divorced or legally separated. A full discussion of this status is beyond the scope of this article, but the general requirements include living apart from your spouse for at least half the year, and paying more than half the cost of keeping up a home with a qualifying person (generally your child).

If you have experiences with being “Married Filing Separately”, please leave me a comment and let me know.