Anonymous wrote:OP here, by Obama, I meant the govt. Getting married did not automatically mean my bills were reduced, if anything, they increased because of the expenses of caring for a child. Are they telling me that as a single person with little responsibilities, I should pay less taxes than a married person with more. How is that fair?

Getting married is one thing. Having a child is an entirely different thing. Generally speaking, your expenses do in fact decline when you are married and share a household. And, generally speaking, your expenses increase when you have a baby (regardless of marital status).

Quit blaming the government for your personal choices.

If your living expenses for two people combined under one roof are not less than two people maintaining separate households, you're seriously doing something wrong. And you'd have to pay for child care whether you got married or not. And if you look at the allowable deductions, the cutoff for child-related expenses is higher for a couple than for a single mom. I'm a single parent making just over $100k and I'm not allowed a credit for anything except a tiny sliver of the child care bill. No child credit, nothing. I pay everyone's bills, including my own.

But you also now will be entitled to a portion of your spouse's social security benefit and other benefits from the government should your spouse predecease you. I only get whatever I've earned over the years. One of you is unemployed, you can still qualify for someone else's health insurance. I'm not -- Cobra or just dying from lack of care for me.

Don't want to be married, don't be. But don't whine about the government screwing you. Get divorced and come back and tell us how that does by you financially with a kid.

Anonymous wrote:OP here, by Obama, I meant the govt. Getting married did not automatically mean my bills were reduced, if anything, they increased because of the expenses of caring for a child. Are they telling me that as a single person with little responsibilities, I should pay less taxes than a married person with more. How is that fair?

Generally the tax code is set up so a person making $200k pays more than a person making $100k, and that a single person making $100k pays more than a married couple making $100k. The difficult comes when two single people making $100k marry-- they generally end paying less than a single person making $200k but more than 2 single people making $100k.

It's not like this is a secret-- it's just that most people don't make it the determining factor in whether to get married.

Someone should do a longitudinal analysis of the marriage penalty versus marriage benefits. If you stay married until one of you dies after retirement, you can college the other person's SS if it was higher. This can be considerable. Also, there are no inheritance taxes on estates to spouses, it's called a pass-through. I realize this is down the road and at the gate it hurt but maybe overall marriage is a plus in terms of taxes and benefits. (Even if you divorce, a spouse who does not remarry can college the deceased spouse's social security if it's higher, provided the marriage was at least 10 years.) So is the marriage penalty really a penalty, or a fee against future benefits?

You owe the government because neither of you met with a financial adviser and asked how the marriage would impact your taxes.

An unplanned pregnancy is Obama's fault? Your decision to get married is Obama's fault? Unless he is the father of your baby or stood next to you at the altar with a shotgun in hand, I think your blame is misdirected. May I suggest looking in a mirror instead?

IIRC, the first year you are married you can file seperately, even if you intend to file jointly going forward. You probably should check if that eases the bite.

Cry me a river

Get an Obamaphone and all your problems will be solved.

OP, poor planning, not Obama, brought on your problems....if this is even a real post.

Does it matter if you file separately?

Yeah, that's the thing. People say "I blame Obama" when it's stuff that he has nothing to do with. We're always looking for the easy target of who to blame. If you meant the government, say what you meant!

You sound like you should have thought a lot harder about getting married in general.

OP here, by Obama, I meant the govt. Getting married did not automatically mean my bills were reduced, if anything, they increased because of the expenses of caring for a child. Are they telling me that as a single person with little responsibilities, I should pay less taxes than a married person with more. How is that fair?

blaming Obama for this is pretty stupid. there is just no way the tax code can be simultaneously fair for every situation (if you think it should be graduated).

Now you understand the marriage penalty!

Your problem is that you aren't a SAH housewife with a (white Repub) husband who makes big $. If you were, the tax structure would work to your benefit.

and neither used lube either. I got married last year, why? I have absolutely no idea now. We lived together and were as good as married but an unexpected/unplanned pregnancy mounted the pressure on us to get married. We just did our taxes, the combined income bumped us into a higher tax bracket and for the first time in my life, I owe the govt. a bunch of money because they think I'm living high on the hog making just over 100k combined in montgomery county.

We still live in our modest one bedroom condo, no debt besides rent, food and everyday living expenses. Daycare at $1500 a month is a bitch. I am so pissed off right now, I find myself snapping at my husband. ..'Welcome to marriage, here's your bill'.

If I had known this, I wouldn't have bothered, the whole marriage thing wasn't important to me to begin with, I just went along to get along. This sucks!