Getting Married in 2024 with Separate Homes - How Should We File Taxes When Not Living Together?

The key thing to understand is that your marital status on December 31, 2024 determines your filing status for the entire year. Since you'll be married in November, for tax purposes, you're considered married for all of 2024. As a married couple, you'll have two options: married filing jointly or married filing separately. Neither of you will be eligible for Head of Household status since you'll be legally married at year-end. Generally, filing jointly provides better tax benefits than married filing separately, but you might want to run the numbers both ways. Regarding your W-4s, you should probably update them soon to reflect your upcoming change in status, especially if you're planning to file jointly. This helps avoid underwithholding penalties. The IRS has a Tax Withholding Estimator tool that can help you figure out the right withholding amounts based on your combined incomes.

After struggling with a similar situation last year, I ended up using taxr.ai to analyze our tax documents and it was a HUGE help! We were also getting married mid-year with separate houses and dependents. I uploaded our previous returns and W-2s to https://taxr.ai and their system showed us exactly how our taxes would change after marriage and the difference between filing jointly vs separately. It really helped us make the right W-4 adjustments too. Honestly way more helpful than the generic advice I was getting elsewhere.

Just wanted to follow up - I tried taxr.ai after posting my skeptical comment. I was genuinely surprised by how helpful it was! I uploaded our documents (took like 5 minutes) and it broke down exactly how our tax situation would change after getting married. The mortgage interest analysis was especially useful since we both have homes. It showed us we'd save about $3,200 filing jointly vs separately and gave us specific W-4 adjustment recommendations. Definitely cleared up my confusion about the whole marital status situation.

If you're frustrated with getting clear answers from the IRS about your specific situation (I know I was when I got married mid-year), try Claimyr. I spent WEEKS trying to reach someone at the IRS about my marriage/property tax questions last year. Finally used https://claimyr.com and got through to an actual IRS agent in under 20 minutes! There's a demo video at https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c that shows how it works. They basically navigate the IRS phone tree for you and call you when they have an agent on the line. The agent confirmed exactly how my new wife and I needed to handle our W-4s and property tax deductions after our mid-year wedding.

I have to eat my words. After posting my skeptical comment, I decided to try Claimyr out of desperation because I needed answers about my multi-property situation before my wedding next month. It actually worked exactly as described. I got a call back in about 45 minutes, and was speaking with a real IRS agent who answered all my questions about handling two properties with my soon-to-be spouse. She confirmed that our December 31 marital status is what matters and recommended we adjust our W-4s now to avoid a big tax bill. Would have taken me days of trying to get this info on my own.

One thing nobody's mentioned yet is that if you both have mortgage interest and property taxes, you might hit the SALT deduction limit of $10k if filing jointly. My wife and I were in this exact situation last year. We had to run the numbers both ways (married filing jointly vs separately) to see which gave us the better outcome. Another consideration is that if one of you gets income-based student loan payments, filing separately might be better, even though you lose some tax breaks.

Wondering if either of you have student loans? This literally changed everything for my wife and me when we got married. If either of you are on income-based repayment, filing separately could save thousands in student loan payments even if you pay slightly more in taxes.

Great question! Since you're getting married in October, you'll be considered married for the entire 2024 tax year regardless of living separately. Here are the key things to consider: **Filing Status**: You'll have two options - Married Filing Jointly (MFJ) or Married Filing Separately (MFS). Head of Household won't be available once you're married. **W-4 Updates**: Yes, update your W-4s soon! With your combined income of ~$295k, you'll likely be in a higher tax bracket and may need to adjust withholdings to avoid underpayment penalties. **Children**: If filing jointly, you can claim both kids on one return. If filing separately, each claims their own child. **Property Considerations**: Since you both own homes, pay attention to the SALT deduction cap ($10k jointly vs $10k each if filing separately). With two properties, you might exceed this limit. **Run Both Scenarios**: Given your income levels and dual home ownership, definitely calculate both MFJ and MFS. Sometimes MFS works better despite losing some tax benefits, especially if you have high property taxes or state income taxes. The living situation doesn't matter for tax purposes - only your legal marital status on December 31st counts. I'd recommend using tax software to model both scenarios before deciding!