Monday, February 9, 2009

Married; filing jointly?

All I have to say is thanks! Thanks to all of my married friends who left out the details about being married and filing taxes.

So just like every other year, I gathered the necessary documents (there are three) and went to the computer, just like I have done in years past and popped in the Turbo Tax CD that I scored $10 cheaper than the norm because I had a coupon - woohoo!

I highly recommend the fill-in-the-blank software as it really is easy to follow if you are like me and not all that talented with financial projects. In what should have been a 30 minute project got off to a rocky start the moment it asked for my new marital status, quickly offered an on screen congratulatory statement and then asked the question - Will you be filing jointly or separately? I knew the question would be asked but thought it really didn't matter. Besides I had all my documents and Jake was still missing a few. And really I was hoping to get my numbers in so I would not get an IOU from the State of California.

Oh well - so much for that.

Back to the question - jointly or separately? Married filing separately, submit. And then the helpful box pops up - "we recommend jointly." That is nice. After all, it is only a recommendation. At least that is what I thought.

So I filled in all the blanks, checked for errors and then again and then the results page that ruined my beautiful Saturday. I would no longer be able to take advantage of my typical deductions filing separately. This is stupid! Is this a way to lighten the workload for the IRS? Two people on one return instead of one? Whatever!

But it only got worse...

So finally Jake was able to gather all of his documents. We filled in the "jointly" blank, the congratulations on being married box popped up again and then the rest of the fill-in-the-blank boxes. And oh how convenient - the direct deposit account numbers automatically remembered Jake's account numbers from last year and not mine. Just my luck, again.

So there you have it, everyone says whats mine is mine and whats yours is ours. Not really because what is OUR refund will be new carpet in OUR home. And while I like the idea of new carpet in OUR home, a new pair of swanky leather heels and a matching purse was really what I was dreaming of.

For now, I guess I will keep playing the lottery. ~mrs. c

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