The Financial Responsibilities & Changes Of Marriage
Getting married is a huge step in life for more reasons than one. Marriage legally binds you to another person. Marriage represents a lifelong commitment to loyalty and faithfulness, but it also has several financial responsibilities and implications.
Before you enter into a very serious, legally binding relationship with your sweet baboo, you need to arm yourself with knowledge. Enter into the sacred bond of marriage with eyes wide opened. Here are a few financial responsibilities and changes brought about by legally marrying your partner in life and love.
Marriage affects your taxes
If you and your spouse both have good-paying jobs, then you may suffer a marriage penalty when it comes time to do your taxes. The downfall of marriage is that if you are both financially successful, you may kick yourself into a new tax bracket and have to pay more at the end of the year.
On the other side of the spectrum, marriage may result in lowering your taxes. Marriage enables the sharing of deductions for things such as mortgage payments and children. Shared aspects of life may generate significant returns after filing taxes.
Divorce is a financial hardship
With marriage comes the possibility of divorce, and divorce is very expensive. Not only does it cost money to actually get divorced, there are a million and one things that could cause mitigation to be necessary. Should you ever find yourself faced with divorce, it will be somewhat a necessity and very helpful to look into divorce specialists and law firms similar to peters and mays or others that can aid you in your divorce proceedings, dependant on where you reside.
When you have to hire lawyers to split assets and fight custody pleas, you will end up spending quite a lot of money. Not to mention, you could pay child support, alimony, and other payments to your ex for years after the divorce.
Marriage brings about shared financial responsibility
When you marry someone, you legally become responsible for all of their debt. Marriage means that you and another person are one according to the law, and your financial woes are also part of the union.
If you owe student loans, a mortgage, a defaulted credit card, or a bank account with a million dollar balance, your partner in marriage becomes 50 percent responsible for all of your financial wins and losses.
Linking your social security benefits
Before entering into the bond of marriage with the love of your life, understand that marriage links your social security benefits after ten years of partnership. Even if you get a divorce after the ten year mark, your spouse has rights to a portion of your social security benefits after you are gone.
Make sure you are marrying a person who is worth that sort of investment. Make sure you are willing to take those benefits from other individuals in your family, before linking yourself to another person through marriage.
