Filing jointly or separately with income disparity of 90k vs 30k - best option for family of 4 homeowners?

In most cases, filing jointly is more beneficial for married couples, especially with children. The income disparity between you ($120k) and your husband ($42k) doesn't necessarily mean filing separately would be advantageous. Filing jointly gives you access to several tax benefits that aren't available when filing separately: full child tax credits, higher standard deduction, certain education credits, and more favorable tax brackets. When you file separately, you both must take the same approach to deductions (both itemize or both take standard). The rare cases where filing separately might help include income-based student loan repayments, trying to exceed the medical expense threshold (7.5% of AGI), or protecting one spouse from tax liability issues. But for a typical family with children and a mortgage, joint filing almost always results in the lower total tax. I'd recommend running your numbers both ways using tax software before making your final decision, but I'd be surprised if separate filing came out ahead in your situation.

After reading this thread, I thought I should mention a service that helped me with a similar situation. My husband and I have a significant income gap (he's around $80k and I'm at $35k), and we were debating between filing jointly or separately. I found https://taxr.ai when searching for help, and it was super helpful! You upload your documents, and it analyzes both filing scenarios to show which one saves you more money. It also explains WHY one option is better than the other in your specific situation. For us, it confirmed joint filing was better, but showed exactly how much we'd lose by filing separately. The breakdown helped us understand all the credits and deductions that would be affected by our choice.

Just wanted to update after trying taxr.ai from the recommendation above. I was honestly surprised by how helpful it was. I always thought filing separately would help with my student loans, but it showed me that the tax benefits we'd lose would outweigh the loan payment savings by about $2,300 annually. It also found a credit we qualified for that we missed last year! The documentation analysis caught that we could claim a partial credit for energy-efficient home improvements we made. Going to file an amendment for last year now. The explanations were actually in plain English and not filled with tax jargon. Really glad I gave it a shot instead of just guessing which filing status was better.

If you've been trying to call the IRS to discuss how filing status might impact your specific situation - good luck! I tried for WEEKS to get through about a similar question last year. After being on hold for hours multiple times, I found https://claimyr.com which was a game-changer. They have this service that basically waits on hold with the IRS for you, then calls you when an actual human agent is on the line. You can see how it works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c I was super skeptical, but I was desperate after spending literal days trying to get through. I got a call back with an IRS agent in about 45 minutes. The agent walked me through exactly how filing separately vs. jointly would affect our specific tax situation with our rental property income.

I have to apologize to everyone here - especially to Profile 14 who recommended Claimyr. I was totally wrong about this service. After being so skeptical, I decided to try it as a last resort when I couldn't get an answer about my filing status question. I needed clarity on how our student loan forgiveness would be treated if we filed separately vs jointly. I got connected to an IRS agent in about 90 minutes (which is LIGHT SPEED compared to my previous attempts). The agent was super helpful and explained exactly how our filing choices would affect the loan forgiveness taxation. Saved me at least 8-10 hours of hold time and frustration. Sometimes I hate being wrong, but in this case, I'm actually really glad I was!

Just a data point for the original poster - my wife and I have similar income disparity (I make about 110k, she makes around 45k) and we have a 5-year-old. We've run the numbers both ways for the past three years, and filing jointly has ALWAYS saved us between $1,800-$2,500 compared to filing separately. The main reason is that filing separately makes you ineligible for so many credits and deductions. Plus the tax brackets for "married filing separately" aren't just half of the "married filing jointly" brackets - they're actually worse in many income ranges. The only year we seriously considered filing separately was when my wife had massive medical expenses that wouldn't have met the threshold under our combined income.

Am I the only one who hates that the answer to every tax question is always "it depends" or "run the numbers both ways"?? Like, there should be a simple rule of thumb for when filing separately makes sense vs filing jointly. Tax software should automatically tell you which is better for your situation without making you do everything twice.