14. Legal And Tax Advice

After becoming married, you will begin to settle into your new life. Soon, you will discover that marriage comes with legal and tax responsibility. You will be faced with legal and tax issues, which is something many couples never even discuss prior to getting married.

14.1 Taxes

The goal with taxes is to find the solution that benefits both of you best.  Depending on how complicated the financial situation, it might be advisable that together, you meet with a tax advisor to determine how you should handle the newly married status.

If you are both good with money and understand taxes, then many different tax programs are available that can be done on a computer. Turbo Tax is one of the most popular choices since you are not required to be a CPA to use it successfully. The one thing that you should give careful thought to is that when filing your taxes as husband and wife, you are required to pay a marriage penalty. This stipulation is governed by the law, in which a married couple has to pay higher taxes than a single person would.

Another consideration is that once you become married, there are now two incomes instead of one. Because the marriage penalty is mandatory, you can not avoid it. In other words, even if the two of you were to file taxes individually, you would still be penalised. Therefore, it might be worth your while to work with a tax preparer at least the first year to see the best options for your specific situation. You might find that working with a tax preparer to do your taxes every year is the easiest and best option since the laws change constantly.

14.2 Legal

The best time to discuss legal issues is before walking down the aisle but this is usually not done. For the actual wedding, you will have several things to take care of, which include the following:

14.2.1 Marriage License

Obviously, to make the marriage legal, a license will need to be purchased.  Every state requires this license, which is easy to obtain and inexpensive. All you need to do is simply visit your local courthouse and after providing proof of identification, fill out some paperwork and the license will be yours.

Once the ceremony is complete, the minister will be required to sign the license along with the witnesses, which are typically the best man and maid of honour. Once the license is signed, it will be mailed back into the court where it is recorded for legal purposes and a copy will be mailed back to you for framing or maintaining with other legal documents.

14.2.2 Property

Another important aspect of marriage is property. Depending on your situation, one or both of you may have been married before, which could involve property. If this were the case, based on the amount of property owned it would probably be a good idea for you to meet with a financial advisor to determine the best course of action.

Generally, couples will choose to have their assets joined, which has many benefits. For instance, it makes tax time easier and should something happen to one of the individuals, whether death or serious injury, things can be handled much easier. This decision is one that you will need to discuss.

If just one of you owns a home, then the other spouse could be added to the existing Deed or have the Deed transferred by going through the court system. Each state has specific processes so contact your local courthouse to determine the appropriate steps for your state. Automobiles are not much different in that these too will need to have the titles changed so that you are both on it.

While making all of these changes is not a fun process and it does take time, once complete, it will save tons of problems later down the road. Some states will not allow these changes to be done before the actual marriage.  Therefore, if you have special circumstances such as these, you can save time and effort by doing a little bit of legwork prior to getting married.

14.2.3 Bank Accounts

Bank accounts are also something to be discussed prior to the marriage. It would be common for both of you to have existing accounts when you get married. Now, you have the decision as to whether to combine the two accounts or keep them separate.

This too is something you will need to decide together and even though you might get some opposition, from family members if you choose to maintain separate accounts, remember that you need to decide on the option that works best for your lifestyle.