Getting married right after tax deadline & just bought a house - filing advice needed?

Your tax filing status is determined by your marital status on December 31st of the tax year. Since you're getting married in April 2025, you'll be considered married for the entire 2025 tax year, but for your 2024 taxes (which are due in April 2025), you'll need to file as single or head of household. You can't file jointly for 2024 since you weren't married in 2024. However, you could each prepare your returns both ways (single and as if married) to compare the difference for planning purposes. Tax software makes this pretty easy - just don't actually file the joint return since it wouldn't be valid. As for the house purchase, if you both contributed to the down payment and are both on the mortgage, you'll each be able to deduct your portion of the mortgage interest and property taxes on your individual returns if you itemize deductions instead of taking the standard deduction. Keep in mind the standard deduction might still be higher for many people.

I was in almost the exact same situation last year and found this amazing tool called taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) that helped us figure out our options. We also bought a house before marriage and were trying to understand all the tax implications. The site analyzed our documents and showed us exactly how our taxes would look filing single vs what they would look like the following year when we could file jointly. It was super helpful for planning purposes since we could see the real numbers rather than just guessing. The mortgage interest deduction stuff was particularly confusing until they broke it down clearly. Definitely worth checking out if you're trying to make sense of this complicated situation!

Just wanted to follow up and say I tried taxr.ai after seeing this recommendation! It was exactly what I needed for my similar situation. I uploaded our mortgage docs and current tax forms and it showed us precisely how much more we'd save filing jointly next year. Even showed us that in our case, we'll still be better off taking the standard deduction even with the new house (wasn't what I expected!). The analysis saved us from making some incorrect assumptions about how the timing would affect our taxes. Honestly one of the most useful tools I've found during this whole home-buying process.

If you're really stressing about this and want to talk to someone at the IRS directly (which I'd recommend given your home purchase), I'd suggest using Claimyr (https://claimyr.com). I spent DAYS trying to get through to the IRS about a similar marriage/property situation and kept getting disconnected or waiting for hours. Claimyr got me connected to an actual IRS agent in about 20 minutes who answered all my specific questions about splitting deductions with my partner before marriage. You can see how it works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c. Seriously saved me so much frustration and I got official answers straight from the source instead of guessing or relying on internet advice.

I need to eat my words here. After posting that skeptical comment, I decided to try Claimyr out of desperation because I had a similar property tax question that I couldn't get answered. Got connected to an IRS agent in about 15 minutes after trying unsuccessfully for WEEKS on my own. The agent confirmed exactly how to handle the property tax deduction split between me and my partner on our separate returns, and even explained how it would change once we're married. Completely worth it just for the peace of mind of having official confirmation.

One thing nobody mentioned yet - you might want to check if you qualify for any first-time homebuyer credits or incentives in your state. Some states have programs that can give you additional tax benefits beyond the federal stuff everyone's talking about. We found out our state had a special program but only AFTER we'd already filed last year and missed out on some nice savings.

I'm in a similar boat but we're getting married in November. Our accountant told us to keep SUPER detailed records of who paid what for the house this year since we'll be filing separately but then jointly next year. Apparently this makes things easier during an audit. He had us create a spreadsheet tracking each mortgage payment, who paid what percentage, all house expenses, etc. Might be overkill but thought I'd share!

Just wanted to add my experience since I went through something very similar! We got married in May 2024 and bought our house in January 2024. The December 31st rule is definitely strict - we had to file separately for 2023 taxes even though we were engaged and living together. One thing that really helped us was creating a simple agreement document outlining how we'd split all house-related expenses and deductions. We did 50/50 on everything since we both contributed equally, but your 60/40 split sounds totally reasonable. Just make sure you're consistent - if you split the down payment 60/40, try to keep that same ratio for ongoing mortgage payments and property taxes throughout the year. Also, don't forget about PMI (private mortgage insurance) if you're paying it - that's also deductible and should be split the same way as your other mortgage costs. We almost missed that one! The good news is once you're married next year, filing jointly will likely save you money overall, especially with the house deductions.