Married vs. Unmarried

• For the purposes of filing, taxpayers who are married on the last day of the tax year are considered married for the entire year. To be considered married, you must be living together as husband and wife, living together in a common law marriage that is recognized by your state, or separated but not divorced. Married couples have the choice between filing joint or separate returns. Unmarried couples have the choice of filing as single, qualifying widow or head of household.
  
  

Death of a Spouse

• If your spouse died during the tax year, you can still file a joint return. To file joint with a deceased spouse, just write your name and the decedent's name on the return as you normally would. In the signature area, write your name and then write "signing as surviving spouse". In addition to filing joint for the tax year in which the decedent died, a surviving spouse is also eligible to file as a qualifying widow or widower for up to two years after the decedent's death. As long as the surviving spouse was qualified to file jointly with the spouse during the year of the spouse's death, did not remarry, had a qualifying dependent and provided more than half the cost of maintaining the home, then he is eligible to file jointly.
  
  

Joint Liability

• By filing a joint return, you are accepting joint liability for the return. This means that both you and your spouse are responsible, both jointly and separately, for the accuracy and completeness of the information entered on the return. For example, if you are a mechanic and your wife is a small business owner and she omits a portion of her small business income from the tax return, the IRS will assess additional tax on the unreported income. You and your spouse are responsible for the tax even if it was your spouse and not you whose income was unreported. Joint liability continues even after married couples divorce.
  
  

Benefits of Filing Jointly

• If you and your spouse decide to file jointly, you may have a lower tax liability because separate filers are ineligible to claim many credits and deductions that are available to joint filers. For instance, separate filers cannot claim any education credits or the earned income credit.