wedding Archives • Bitches Get Riches

Ah, taxes! Second only to gas prices in the list of things we Americans like to blame for our money woes. Also: hella romantic!

That’s right, Bitch Nation, for today on the podcast we’re discussing the intersection of love and taxes. Specifically, the question of whether you should get married for tax purposes.

Popular wisdom dictates that getting married and filing taxes jointly will give you a huge discount on your tax bill. We’ve heard worse reasons to get married. But is this one really true?

As usual, the answer is… it depends! On your circumstances, your income, your property ownership, and a whole host of other matters. We are by no means tax experts (though our marriage expertise is beyond reproach), but we’re going to do our best to shine a light on the question of getting married for tax purposes.

Here comes the bride!

Every once in a while we Bitches are asked marriage or relationship questions. And it amuses me to no end that we are seen as ADULTS with STABLE MARRIAGES and HEALTHY LIFESTYLES. Because we live in keen awareness that we’re floating slowly down a river of Parmesan cheese straight into the yawning mouth of the Ninth Gate of Death, just like everybody else.

Not that’s it’s necessarily wrong! My marriage with Bear just feels like such a humble, natural thing. How could it possibly be instructional to others? He’s currently listening to a podcast in the shower while I do blog stuff from the couch and I love him so stupidly much.

Yet our loving relationship has much more to do with why we got married than how. Being in love and wanting to spend your life with someone is, sadly, not the only requirement for getting married (common law marriages notwithstanding).

So today I want to talk about the logistics of marriage: the paperwork, the bureaucracy, and the legal gauntlet you must run to get hitched.

In this era of modern romance, it’s pretty common for people to move in together before getting married, even to combine finances or buy property together. We did! That gradual combining of lives makes things pretty painless. But let’s say you’re doing it all at once around the time of the wedding! With that in mind, here’s a list of the steps you need to take to get married… punctuated with gifs from the wedding of John Legend’s dogs.