Trying to find tax advantages to marriage when we both earn good income - any benefits I'm missing?

Tax planning for marriage often depends on your specific situation, and you're right that at higher income levels, there can sometimes be a "marriage penalty." For your situation, there are a few things to consider. First, the mortgage interest - while you could technically have one person claim it while unmarried, the IRS looks at who has legal obligation to pay and who has ownership. If both names are on the mortgage and deed, splitting the interest deduction while unmarried becomes complicated. For the child situation, only one unmarried parent can claim Head of Household status, which does provide better tax brackets than single filing. The parent who provides more than half the cost of maintaining the home where the child lives qualifies. The Child Tax Credit can be claimed by the parent who claims the child as a dependent. The benefits people talk about often apply to couples with disparate incomes (like one high earner and one low/no earner), or those at lower income brackets. At your income levels, you might face what's called the "marriage penalty" where your combined income pushes you into a higher tax bracket than you'd be in separately.

I was stuck in the exact same mindset as you before I discovered taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai). I was convinced my partner and I would be penalized for getting married because of our similar incomes. I uploaded our tax documents and ran different scenarios - married filing jointly, separately, and staying unmarried. What surprised me was seeing how certain deductions and credits interact in ways I hadn't considered. The tool showed me that while we did face some marriage penalties in certain areas, there were unexpected benefits in others. For example, one year when my income unexpectedly dropped due to a career change, being married actually saved us thousands because of how income averaging worked. It also helped us optimize our retirement contributions which I was doing completely wrong before.

I was wrong about tax planning tools. After trying taxr.ai based on the recommendation here, I found it actually saved us about $4,800 by identifying a combination of retirement contribution strategies and timing of income that worked specifically for our situation. The tool pointed out that while we'd face a small marriage penalty in income taxes, we'd gain significantly from being able to make spousal IRA contributions when one of us took parental leave. It also helped us determine the optimal year to get married based on our career trajectories and when we planned to buy a house. What convinced me was how it displayed side-by-side comparisons of different scenarios over multiple years, showing the cumulative effect rather than just a single tax year. Definitely changed my perspective on tax planning.

After spending 12+ hours trying to get through to someone at the IRS to ask about married vs. single filing situation strategies, I finally found Claimyr (https://claimyr.com). They connected me to an actual IRS representative in about 20 minutes when I had been trying for days on my own. You can see how it works in their demo video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c The IRS agent walked me through some surprising benefits for married couples regarding capital loss carryovers, estate planning considerations, and Social Security taxation that I hadn't considered. Most online calculators don't account for these longer-term benefits. The agent also explained how marriage affects healthcare subsidies if you're on an ACA plan, which was super relevant to our situation.

I have to publicly eat my words. After being completely convinced that Claimyr was a scam, I tried it out of desperation. I was facing a similar marriage tax question with a time-sensitive decision needed before year-end. Got connected to an IRS agent in about 15 minutes when I had been trying for weeks on my own. The agent provided clarity on how marriage would affect our specific situation with rental property income and passive activity losses - something I couldn't find clear information about online. What surprised me most was that the agent took time to go through multiple scenarios with me and explained some exceptions to the general rules that applied to our situation. This completely changed our decision on timing our marriage for tax purposes. I probably saved thousands just by being able to talk to an actual human at the IRS.

One thing nobody's mentioned yet is Social Security benefits. If there's a significant income disparity between you two, marriage can provide substantial benefits later in life. The lower-earning spouse can claim benefits based on the higher-earning spouse's record. Also, estate tax and inheritance issues are much simpler for married couples. If something happens to one of you, a spouse can inherit everything tax-free, while unmarried partners might face substantial taxes depending on your state.

Having been through this myself, you're missing a critical view of the long game. Your immediate tax hit might be negative, but consider: 1) Health insurance and beneficiary status on retirement accounts is much simpler married 2) One massive advantage: unlimited gift/estate tax exemption between spouses 3) Legal protections if one of you becomes ill or incapacitated 4) With kids, certain education credits phase out at lower incomes for single filers My spouse and I calculated about a $1,800 marriage penalty annually at first, but when my income dropped after having our second child, we actually benefited from filing jointly. Life changes, and being married gives you more flexibility as your situation evolves.