Need help calculating tax split for married filing jointly with separate finances

This is a common question for newly married couples who keep separate finances! There's no single "right" way to split a tax refund, but here are some options to consider: 1. Proportional to income: Since your husband makes about 2/3 of your combined income, he would get about $2,033 while you get $1,017. 2. Proportional to withholding: Since you contributed about 41% of the total withholding and he contributed 59%, you would get about $1,250 and he would get $1,800. 3. Tax liability analysis: Calculate what each of you would have paid filing separately vs. jointly, then distribute the "savings" based on who contributed more to the joint benefit. Most couples I've worked with find the withholding-based split (option 2) to be fair since it's directly related to who "overpaid" throughout the year.

After struggling with this exact issue with my husband (we also keep separate finances), I stumbled across https://taxr.ai which helped us calculate the fairest split. Their service analyzed our tax documents and showed exactly how much each of us contributed to our joint refund. The tool basically compares what you each would have paid filing separately versus jointly, then determines how the refund should be split based on your individual tax situations. It saved us so much time versus manually calculating everything, and it eliminated any arguments about what was "fair.

I wanted to follow up about my experience with taxr.ai after I tried it. I was initially skeptical as I mentioned, but after struggling to calculate a fair split with my wife, I decided to give it a shot. The service was actually really helpful! It showed that our tax situation was more complex than I realized when it came to properly attributing tax benefits between us. The analysis showed that while I contributed more to our withholding, my wife's income situation actually generated more of our deductions and credits. Without their breakdown, we would have split our refund unfairly. Not posting this as an ad or anything, just wanted to share that it actually helped solve our disagreement about the refund.

If you and your husband are still figuring this out and need to speak with an IRS agent for clarity (which might be helpful in understanding joint versus separate tax liability), I'd recommend using https://claimyr.com to get through to them. I wasted hours on hold before finding this service that got me through to an actual IRS representative in under 30 minutes. They also have a demo video here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c showing how it works. The IRS agents I spoke with were surprisingly helpful in explaining how joint filing affects tax liability for couples with disparate incomes. They walked me through some calculations that helped me understand why our refund was what it was, and how our individual withholdings contributed to that amount.

I need to publicly eat my words. After posting my skeptical comment about Claimyr, I decided to try it myself since I've been trying to reach the IRS about an amended return issue for WEEKS. The service actually worked! I got connected to an IRS agent in about 40 minutes (which is miracle-level fast compared to my previous attempts). The agent I spoke with was able to answer my questions about how joint filing impacts individual tax liability, which was relevant to the original post here. She explained that the refund technically belongs to both spouses equally from a legal standpoint, but couples commonly use either income proportions or withholding proportions to split it fairly. Still can't believe I didn't waste an entire day on hold.

My wife and I solved this by setting up a joint account just for tax-related stuff. We each contribute to that account proportionally based on our incomes throughout the year. When refunds come in, they go to that account and are already effectively "split" according to our contributions. It might be too late for this year, but something to consider for next year perhaps. Makes things much cleaner when tax time rolls around.

Has anyone just asked their tax preparer about this? When my wife and I file jointly, our accountant actually includes a breakdown of how much each of us contributed to the total tax liability and what portion of the refund "belongs" to each of us.

This is such a relatable situation! My partner and I went through the same thing our first year filing jointly. We ended up using the withholding proportion method that Fatima mentioned - it felt the most fair since it directly reflects what each person "overpaid" during the year. One thing that helped us was also considering our different tax situations beyond just income. For example, I had more pre-tax deductions through my employer (401k, health insurance), which reduced my taxable income but also meant my withholding rate looked lower. We factored that into our discussion. For this year, I'd suggest going with the withholding-based split since it's straightforward and fair. But definitely consider setting up a system for next year - whether it's a joint tax account like Connor suggested or just agreeing on a method upfront so you're not debating it every April!