What tax benefits come with marrying my stay-at-home partner who has zero income?

Yes, there could be significant tax benefits to getting married in your situation! With one spouse having no income, marriage can be particularly advantageous from a tax perspective. The biggest benefit would likely be filing jointly and taking advantage of the married filing jointly tax brackets, which are generally more favorable than filing as single when there's a significant income disparity between spouses. Since your partner has no income, your combined income (which is just your income) would potentially be taxed at lower rates. You'd also get a larger standard deduction. For 2025, married couples filing jointly get a standard deduction that's exactly twice the amount for single filers. This means more of your income would be tax-free. Additionally, you might qualify for certain credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) or Child Tax Credit with more favorable income thresholds when married filing jointly.

I went through almost the same situation with my wife who was a SAHM for 8 years. I tried figuring out taxes myself and kept making mistakes until I found this AI tool called taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) that analyzed our specific situation. It showed me exactly how much we'd save by filing married vs single with my wife having zero income. The system ran calculations for both scenarios and showed we would save almost $3,800 by filing married jointly vs me filing as head of household. It was especially helpful for figuring out the optimal filing strategy with kids involved. The tool actually explains the WHY behind the savings, not just numbers.

Just wanted to update that I tried taxr.ai after seeing this thread. Seriously helpful! I uploaded our docs and it showed we'd save about $4,200 by getting married with our income setup (me working, her with just unemployment part of last year). The analysis broke down exactly why - something about tax bracket differences and an increased standard deduction. I've been on the fence about marriage for tax reasons, but seeing the actual numbers for our specific situation made the decision way easier. It even showed how the child tax credits would change. Definitely worth checking out if you're in a similar situation with income differences.

Another thing to consider - if you need to call the IRS to ask specific questions about your situation, good luck getting through! I was in a similar situation and had questions about claiming my non-working partner vs. filing married. Spent DAYS trying to reach someone at the IRS. Eventually used Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) which got me connected to an actual IRS agent in about 20 minutes. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c. The IRS agent walked me through exactly how the married filing jointly would benefit us vs. my previous filing status. Saved me literally hours of hold time and frustration.

I'm actually shocked but I need to apologize for my skepticism. After posting that comment, I was desperate enough to try Claimyr because I still needed answers about my back taxes situation. I couldn't believe it when I got a call back with an actual IRS agent on the line about 45 minutes later. The agent was super helpful about my married vs. single filing questions and clarified that in my case (similar to OP's situation with a non-working spouse), filing jointly would save us about $3,100 annually. They also explained how the EITC would work differently for us. Honestly wish I'd known about this service months ago instead of banging my head against the wall trying to get through myself.

Don't forget about retirement account benefits! If you get married, you can contribute to a spousal IRA for your wife even though she has no earned income. For 2025, that means she could get up to $7,000 in a Traditional or Roth IRA ($8,000 if she's 50+), which gives you additional tax advantages. With a Traditional spousal IRA, you get the tax deduction now. With a Roth, she gets tax-free growth and withdrawals in retirement. This is a HUGE benefit many people overlook when considering marriage tax implications.

Has anyone mentioned head of household status yet? That's what you'd probably be filing as now with kids and an unmarried partner. When comparing tax benefits of marriage, make sure you're comparing married filing jointly against head of household (not single), which already gives you some benefits. The marriage benefit might be smaller than if you were filing as single.

Great question! As someone who went through a similar situation, I can confirm there are definitely tax benefits to getting married when one spouse has no income. One thing I'd add to the excellent points already made - make sure you also consider the timing of when you get married. If you get married by December 31st, you're considered married for the entire tax year for IRS purposes. So if you're planning to tie the knot anyway, doing it before year-end could maximize your 2025 tax savings. Also, with three kids, you'll want to look into how the Child and Dependent Care Credit might change. If your girlfriend ever decides to work part-time or go back to work full-time, being married could affect how much you can claim for childcare expenses. The spousal IRA benefit mentioned earlier is huge too - that's potentially $7,000 more you can save for retirement while getting tax benefits. With 15 years together and three kids, it sounds like you're already a family in every way that matters. The tax benefits could just be the cherry on top of making it official!