Just got my taxes done with HR Block and the lady couldn't answer my question Question is: I'm thinking of buying a house with my girlfriend and we are trying to figure out the tax ramification with being married and unmarried. I would think if we stayed unmarried we would pay less in taxes. I always hear people be screwed being dual income. Especially since she makes a few $$$ more than I do. Any tax experts out there?
I am by no means a tax expert, but as long as you don't file the EZ form, and don't take standard deductions, you can claim the mortgage interest as a deduction. I can't claim "head of household" myself, but if you file seperate, one of you may be able to claim head of household. You may want look into that :up: Re: H&R: they are okay, went to them a few years ago when I first got a house. I had already done forms on my own, just seeing if I missed anything. I got all the taxes right, but they missed part of my deductions. So the next year I filed on my own and the IRS allow missed deductions to be filed the following year :up:
Ok I am a CPA but I haven't prepared taxes full time for a couple of years now but I can still help you out some but when I give years and what is supposed to happen I could be off some as the information changes often. As of 2005 you will still pay more tax when married if your combined taxable income is over $119,950. This is your taxable income (income after all deductions) not your gross income (income before deductions). The "marriage tax penalty" is being slowly phased out. I believe it is supposed to be completely phased out by 2008 (or around that time) but then could go back into effect the next year if not extended by congress. If you did buy a house with your girlfriend you could do two things. You could split the interest and real estate taxes between the two of you and file separately or you could put the house in just one of your names and just that person take the entire deduction. If you did the later you would want the person earning the most to take the deduciton. This could be risky though since if you break up the other person would not have a good claim on the house. All of this is very dependent on both of your financial situations and is very hard to type out. If you'd like you can pm me your phone number and I will call you and I can help you out. jeremy
