It looks like taxes increase and any kind of post-life planning can be done with a few legal filings rather than getting married. Is there any real benefit? It kinda seems like it’s just a way to trap people in relationships, probably traditionally, the woman.
- The right to make medical decisions on behalf of the other
- The right to visit the other in the hospital
- The right to make funeral arrangements for the other
- The right to survivor’s benefits (veteran’s benefits, Social Security, private pension, etc.)
- Income tax breaks and credits
- Tax breaks on inheritance and estate taxes
- Tax breaks on money and property transfers between spouses
- Immigration and naturalization rights
- Can’t be forced to testify against the other (usually)
- Communications between married partners are privileged from discovery in civil and criminal cases (usually)
- Joint adoption rights
- Bereavement leave
- Joint bankruptcy protection
- Automatic recognition of the relationship by every state, nation, etc.
Etc. There’s something like 1,000 rights, privileges, and responsibilities that attach through marriage only.
Just to be clear on the first two points, you can designate anyone as your health care proxy. Check your state for specific applicable forms. In general if no one is designated though it will default to a spouse.
Health care proxy is also different than power of attorney, which sometimes people get confused on.
I’m not sure if America works in the same way but in my country parents can take those. Like you can ask for your unmarried partner to be your NOK but if they fall into a coma or similar then the parents can take that status and block the partner from the hospital.
It doesn’t always happen obviously but it’s happened enough to make the news.
Remember, news typically consists of the noteworthy, not the commonplace. It still sucks if you’re the lucky one to have your privileges removed, though.
It’s very interesting to me that people tend to mention tax breaks for marriage because it’s just not the case except if one of the spouses does not work or makes significantly less than the other. For example, when I was married, our taxes went up by about 6k a year. It’s called the marriage penalty tax. A lot of these other benefits also depended entirely on the state/job/facility and are still required to be granted via other documentation. For example, Florida is a probate state and requires a will regardless of marital status or you have to go through probate (ask me how I know). Medical decisions and adoption seem to be important benefits, but these can also happen without marriage. Survivor’s benefits are interesting as well because those don’t generally extend past the last owed check, but do still go through probate if you’re in a probate state.
It’s the case unless your household makes over $693,750, in which case you should probably be having an accountant do your taxes, and $6k is a drop in the bucket for you.
For everyone else, the brackets are exactly double the single file, so if you’re making exactly the same amount it’s a wash, and for most couples it means ending in a lower tax bracket.
I’m curious how that could possibly be the case…
You said in another comment that you were both making $45k. According to this table from the IRS you would each be paying $3,743 as single filers and $7,483 filling jointly. That adds up to a $3 savings when you get married. Not too mention a $6k difference is 80% of the total taxes owed so it would be wild to see that big of a variation caused by filling jointly.
Perhaps there was some tax break or credit you got when you were single that you lost when you got married? In that case, couldn’t you just file your taxes separately if there really was a significant difference from filing jointly?
Some of these make me sad to read because it demonstrates what at least my society lacks and what it has but uses as gimmicks, as if marriage is a cult.
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I’ve seen married people forced to testify against each other all the time. The “right to remain silent” is universally thrown out the window.
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The “joint adoption rights” thing is flipped around. If someone is jailed, the rights to their children is taken from both them and their spouse.
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Imagine for a moment we even have inheritance taxes and rules against making arrangements for anything.
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The automatic recognition of the relationship by every state and nation is a misconception. That’s how it’s supposed to work due to the Hague convention, and in regular cases it does, but it’s not enforced.
