Married couples have a choice to make at tax time: They can file their returns jointly or separately. Many file joint returns, but there are some situations in which filing separately can be beneficial.
Morris Armstrong, an enrolled agent in Cheshire, Connecticut, is authorized to represent taxpayers before the IRS. He runs the numbers both ways for clients to analyze whether filing jointly or separately is better for them each year. “You should always assess your filing status,” he says.
Married couples are only eligible for some tax breaks if they file jointly. But filing separately helps protect you from errors and omissions made by your spouse.
“Once a married couple files a return jointly, they are jointly and severally responsible for the accuracy of the return and the consequences of the return,” Morris says.
Keep reading for help deciding which way to go for tax year 2024.
Reasons to File Jointly
There are many advantages to filing a joint tax return. You may end up with a lower tax rate and qualify for some tax breaks you can’t get as separate filers. Here are three reasons you may want to file jointly:
1. You Could Get a Lower Tax Rate
“You typically get lower tax rates when married filing jointly, and you have to file jointly to claim some tax benefits,” says Lisa Greene-Lewis, a certified public accountant and tax expert for Intuit.
“You need to consider your tax rate, your income and what deductions and credits you’re eligible for when you’re thinking about filing jointly or separately,” she adds.
[Read: 10 Tax Credits You May Qualify for This Year]
Greene-Lewis says that married couples who file jointly generally experience a more favorable tax outcome overall compared to separate filers.
“They can earn higher income and claim more income-based credits and deductions, and they are also taxed at a lower tax rate for higher income,” she says.
2. You Earn More Credits and Deductions
If you’re married, you’re eligible for certain tax breaks only if you file a joint return. Couples who file separately can’t claim the American opportunity credit or lifetime learning credit for education expenses, and they can’t take the student loan interest deduction.
In most cases, you can’t claim the dependent care credit if you file separately. But if you’re legally separated or living apart from your spouse, you may still be able to file separately and claim the credit, James Revels, a CPA and partner at KPMG in Philadelphia, says.
Married couples generally need to file jointly to receive a tax credit for qualified adoption expenses. Still, Revels says there is an exception for certain taxpayers who live apart from their spouses and meet other requirements.
Additionally, a person who files separately may claim the adoption credit from prior years if they were married and filed a joint return in the year when the qualified adoption expenses first became allowable for the credit, he says.
[Read: 22 Legal Secrets to Help Reduce Your Taxes]
Also, be careful about filing separately if you’ve enrolled in Medicare and are subject to the high-income surcharge, Armstrong says.
The surcharge is usually lower for joint filers. Instead of the standard $185 monthly premium for Medicare Part B in 2025, married couples filing jointly who earned more than $212,000 in 2024 generally have to pay more — for example, $259 per month if their joint income was $212,000 to $266,000, and more at higher income levels.
But married couples filing separately who earned between $106,000 and $394,000 have to pay a much larger surcharge, with premiums of $591.90 per month in 2025. For incomes of $394,000 or higher, the monthly premium is $628.90.
3. You Can Contribute to a Roth IRA
Married couples filing jointly also have a much higher income cutoff to be eligible to make Roth IRA contributions.
They can contribute to a Roth IRA for tax year 2024 as long as their combined modified adjusted gross income is less than $240,000 — the contribution amount starts to phase out if they earned more than $230,000 in 2024.
If you’re married filing separately and lived with your spouse at any time during the year, however, you can contribute to a Roth IRA only if your income is less than $10,000, and it will be less than the annual $7,000 limit (or $8,000 for those age 50 and older).
[READ: How Roth IRA Taxes Work]
Reasons to File Separately
In some situations, filing separately could help you save on your tax return. Just keep in mind that couples who choose this filing status typically receive fewer tax benefits.
“Married filing separately is an uncommon filing status, however, it can be beneficial for certain legal and strategic reasons,” Revels says.
Here are four reasons you may want to file separately:
1. You Earn the Same Level of Income as Your Spouse
The way the tax brackets are calculated, some high-income couples may end up with lower tax rates if they file separately, Greene-Lewis says. “High-income earners, if both spouses earn the same, may come out better filing separately.”
[Read: Filing 2025 Taxes: What’s My Tax Bracket?]
But couples with lower incomes may pay more tax if they file separately.
“You will potentially have a slightly higher tax when filing separately than you would have on a jointly filed return in lower tax brackets,” Revels says.
You can run your numbers with TurboTax’s TaxCaster calculator to estimate how much you’d pay in taxes if you file jointly versus separately. Most tax software and tax professionals will do the calculations both ways and let you know which filing status would work better for you.
2. You Have Hefty Medical Bills
Filing separately may help you qualify for some tax breaks. For example, if you itemize your deductions, you can deduct unreimbursed medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income.
If one spouse has a lot of medical expenses and a lower income, filing separately may make it easier to cross the 7.5% income threshold to deduct the expenses.
“These medical expenses will have to be greater than 7.5% of their adjusted gross income and higher than the standard deduction in order to benefit,” Revels says.
For tax year 2024, the standard deduction is $29,200 for married couples filing jointly and $14,600 for single taxpayers and married individuals filing separately.
Married taxpayers who are 65 and older each get an extra $1,550 added to their standard deductions, whether they file jointly or separately. If one spouse itemizes their deductions, the other has to as well.
3. Your Income Determines Your Student Loan Payments
Filing separately may also help reduce the income level that determines student loan payments, Revels says.
“Some taxpayers’ student loan payments are based on their tax return income,” he says. “It may be beneficial to change to married filing separately if this would result in a lower payment plan.”
4. You Don’t Want to Be Responsible for Each Other’s Tax Liabilities
One of the most common reasons people file separately is to limit their liability for their spouse’s tax errors.
“In situations where there is a lack of trust between spouses, typically due to business activities or tax positions being taken on a tax return, filing separately is a way to help protect the innocent spouse from any potential legal or tax issues,” Revels says.
“When you file married filing jointly, each person is responsible for the accuracy of the return and the paying of the tax that may be due or assessed in the future,” Armstrong says.
“In addition, if there is a history of balance due, or you are filing many years at once to get into compliance, filing as married jointly puts all assets on the table. This means that the wife who has $600,000 in her 401(k) may have that seized by the IRS to satisfy back taxes, even if the bulk of the income and mistakes were caused by the other spouse,” he says.
Couples typically file separately if they are going through a divorce, Revels says.
“Married filing separately is used during the divorce process to separate each person’s tax situation and finances,” he says. “This also removes the responsibility for each other’s tax liabilities.”
You Can Amend a Return for Retroactive Benefits
Armstrong helped a woman who had filed separately from her husband for several years because they thought it was best since he had only Social Security income to report and she was still working. Armstrong looked back at their last several years of returns and found they would have come out ahead by filing jointly.
“Married filing jointly expanded the tax brackets, and it did not matter whose income it was,” Armstrong says. He filed amended returns for them for three years and they ended up with large refunds.
According to Armstrong, you can jointly amend your return to married filing for three years and capture all available credits. You generally have up to three years after filing your original return or two years after the date you paid the tax to file an amended return, whichever is later.
You can’t, however, amend a married filing jointly return into a married filing separately after the filing deadline.
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Married Couples: Is It Better to File Taxes Jointly or Separately? originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 03/24/25: This story was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
