The Marriage Files

It’s nearly April, and that important annual spring ritual is upon us. No, I don’t mean Easter, Passover or Daylight Savings Time. I mean tax season. Paying taxes is bad enough when you’re single, but at least when you’re solo you can enjoy the luxury of knowing that you and you alone are responsible for mishandling your money. When you get married, you find that unless you want to pay a lot more in taxes, you have no choice but to file jointly. All of a sudden, your financial picture goes from one of total clarity (I know exactly what a sorry mess it is) to a murky morass of mixed assets, unknown debts, and an uncertain outlook ("what do you mean we owe your bookie $500?"). For my husband K— and I, the transition to joint filing status didn’t happen without a few little bumps and potholes. But oddly enough, the real issues when we filed jointly for the first time were not ones of finance, strictly speaking, but of loyalty and vanity. You see, before we were married, we used different accountants. Filing jointly meant we had to choose between them. Now, a woman’s relationship to her accountant is one that some husbands find hard to accept, because an accountant is a lot like an ex-boyfriend: he knows all her secrets. A man resents anyone who knows more about his wife than he does, so K— wasn’t about to open up to my long-time accountant, Adam. Not willing to admit this, however, he made out his position to be one of fealty. "I’m not giving up Steve" (his accountant), he said, and that was that. This was early in our marriage, but I had already learned to recognize K—’s "I’m not budging" tone of voice. I acquiesced. Because we’d never filed jointly before, we had a telephone consultation with Steve weeks before our actual appointment so we could go over all our questions before we put together our numbers. Everything went fine until the very end. Talking to himself out loud, Steve said, "And we’ll be filing under your name, K—." My ears perked up. I hadn’t realized until then that on a joint return, a couple are identified as "taxpayer" and "spouse." I was no longer going to be "taxpayer." I was going to be "spouse," and I didn’t like it one bit. Steve made the pragmatic point that since his firm kept records by customers’ last names, for the sake of continuity, it would be better to have all of K—’s tax returns, including his joint ones, under his name. And obviously, K— and I don’t share the same last name. It was a double whammy. First I’d given up my long relationship with my accountant, and now I was going to be relegated to a mere addendum to my husband, an afterthought, the sidekick to his leading role. "We’ll talk about that," I told Steve, "and we’ll get back to you." At home, the discussion continued. I didn’t and don’t pretend for one second that this was about anything but pride. Since K— is no slouch in the ego department, either, he wasn’t about to give up his titular position of supremacy without complaint. Finally, we settled on what seemed like a reasonable approach: we’d file under the name of whoever had contributed more to our common wealth that year. All that remained was to figure out the answer.			Tips on Filing a Joint Tax Return Tax terms can be confusing, and you may be wondering how to interpret some of them now that you’re married and filing a joint return. Here’s help: —For the women: No, you cannot claim your husband as a "dependent." I know that "dependent" sure sounds like what he is, but that’s not what the government means. —For the men: No, you cannot claim your wife as a "dependent." I know that "dependent" sure sounds like what she is, but that’s not what the government means. —"Gross income" is, indeed, just that—enough to turn your stomach. The gross income of the two of you combined will be grosser than the gross income of just you alone. This is definitely not an example of a whole greater than (or even equal to) the sum of its parts. —"Net long-term loss from partnership" does not refer to any financial consequences of marriage. —In the same vein, what you paid for your wedding does not qualify as a "long-term capital loss carryover." —"Collectibles gains and losses" does not refer to the hoped-for increase (or actual decrease) in the value of her collection of Spode decorative Christmas plates or his collection of Mad Magazine memorabilia, no matter how much s/he spent on them. —"Empowerment Zone" does not refer to your psychological state after watching a Steven Seagal movie or listening to a Deepak Chopra spirituality CD. —And finally, yes, those little notes about "Paperwork Reduction Act Notice" at the bottom of the pages of your tax return tome are meant to be comic relief. Who says bureaucrats don’t have a sense of humor?
When the time came to compare numbers, we got off to a shaky start. K— pointed to one large entry in my column of figures and said, "What’s this?" "That’s my business income," I replied. When he came back with "Net or gross?" I realized that this wasn’t going to be a comparison so much as an audit. "Net" I growled. "Okay, then what about this?" he queried, jabbing his finger at another sum. "Well," I said, "that’s kind of a question mark. If the point here is to figure out which one of us did more for our combined finances, then what about things that save us money? If I do work on the house that we’d otherwise have to pay a carpenter to do," I argued, "shouldn’t that be included? Isn’t saving money from being spent pretty much the same thing as earning it?" "With that rationale," K— countered, "you should be able to figure in the value of grocery coupons you redeem." "Good idea!" I exclaimed, and quickly wrote that down. "Well, if you’re going to add in things like that," said K— petulantly, "I’m going to put down the things I do that save us money!" "And what would those be?" I asked superciliously. (Remember, this is Sir Spendalot.) K— gaped blankly for a few seconds before spluttering, "What about the cost of all the fun things I wanted to buy but didn’t?" * Right about then, one of us made the wise decision to call a time out. A flurry of emails and phone calls to Steve ensued as we ran by him—privately—our increasingly wild attempts to maximize our dollar value as mates. One by one, he shot everything down. "I just think I do more to keep us financially healthy," I lamented to Steve on the phone one day. "K— is so wasteful. But I’m the kind of person who picks up lost coins in parking lots." For the first time, Steve had a positive response. "Now that," he shouted excitedly, "counts as income!" I could hear him sharpening a pencil. "Just how much would you estimate you ‘earned’ picking up spare change?" He made his point. Things had gotten a little ugly. So maybe we both got carried away. We learned several things from our unwitting contest. For one thing, we don’t make nearly enough money. For another, we may be a little too competitive. For a third, nothing in marriage is a simple 50/50 split. You both contribute different things in different amounts, and you have to learn to value the other person’s contribution just as much as you value your own. We both had to admit that neither one of us could support our household single-handedly, and it wasn’t just a question of income. You may be wondering how we finally resolved our dispute, since our little exercise in calculating our relative worth didn’t result in much more than showing us just how petty we could get. Well, in the spirit of joint finance, we discovered that there is still some value in pennies picked up in parking lots. A penny’s got a heads side, and it’s got a tails side, and even if it won’t buy much, you can still put it to good use. * Computer, scanner, color printer, monitor, DVD burner, home theater system, CDs by the dozen, skis, ski boots, ski/bike rack, planer, jointer, snow blower, generator, new car, pickup truck, GPS navigation system, satellite dish…

TMF is a collective, ongoing work that is protected by relevant copyrights and registrations. You are invited to share the URL of this website for non-profit entertainment purposes, but in no other way can The Marriage Files (TMF) be used, reproduced, copied, developed, adapted, altered, or distributed without the express written permission of the author.