Asklemmy

43905 readers

986 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

In United States, what are the benefits of getting legally married? (beehaw.org)

submitted 10 months ago by janabuggs@beehaw.org to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It looks like taxes increase and any kind of post-life planning can be done with a few legal filings rather than getting married. Is there any real benefit? It kinda seems like it's just a way to trap people in relationships, probably traditionally, the woman.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Marriage tax penalties usually affect high income, especially where both spouses make a lot. In many cases taxes go down.

[–] janabuggs@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I was married (now divorced) and ours definitely went up. We both made about 45k at the time.

[–] Reil@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago

American marriage tax codes are written to benefit the sort of couple with a stay-at-home-spouse. Having one person without an income (or with a significantly lower income) in the marriage effectively pulls you down in the tax brackets as a whole.

[–] TheButtonJustSpins@infosec.pub 2 points 10 months ago

If you both make around the same, you'll see it go up. If you make vastly different amounts (such as by having only one income), it'll go down.

[–] Nemo@midwest.social 2 points 10 months ago

Mine went down, for sure, but I'm a sole earner.