Once upon a time, people used to say that homeownership was a huge benefit come tax time.
At this point, I’ve been a homeowner almost longer in my life than I haven’t. Hard to swallow that pill, but I did purchase my first home when I was 22 years old, and I’ve been paying mortgage notes almost entirely since then, with only a small gap while I was in between homes in 2017.
However, the first home, I was splitting the mortgage 50/50, so at the end of every tax season, it really didn’t benefit either myself or Jen. We had talked about alternating years in which we would declare head of household and file 100% of the taxes on our respective returns, but it never came to fruition, and that was all at the tail end of our tenure.
It kind of helped when I was in my current digs, when mythical then-gf and I were living in sin and filing our own taxes as individual singles. It helped me from going straight negative, and I had maybe 2-3 years where I actually made a little bit of cash back, which was a massive win considering how many years previously in which I always seemed to owe money.
Once upon a time, people used to say that marriage was a huge benefit come tax time.
I can’t really speak much to this one, considering mythical now-wife and I have been married for closing in on year, this summer. I think in 2019 we still filed as individuals, since we were not-married for more of 2019 than we were. By the time we filed in 2020, the vast majority of the year was spent preparing for the birth of #1 and then navigating through the coronavirus-addled world, and I can’t say that we really had a single tax return where we were a married, childless couple.
Once upon a time, people used to say that having kids was a huge benefit come tax time.
Stories of degenerate baby mamas, entrapping dumbass men who can’t be bothered to put a raincoat on, popping out and collecting children like they’re Infinity Stones, and collecting come tax time. I’ve known some women who perhaps weren’t as degenerate, but they also weren’t shy about expressing their anticipation for taxes, due to the supposed benefits and breaks they were always subject to based on the number of children they had.
In all fairness, contrary to the tone of this post, mythical wife and I actually did have an incredible 2020 tax return. The amount of money that was refunded to us, I had to wipe my eyes and run the numbers multiple times, because I was positive that there had to have been some sort of mistake. But it was legitimate, and for that one calendar year, we thought that all of the things people used to say was finally coming true, and by having the trifecta of a house, marriage and kids, tax returns were about to become a fucking holiday every year.
But coming back to reality here and to the present, I’ve been a married homeowner with children for five years now, and over the span of the last two tax returns, I’ve never owed so much money to the IRS in my life. Take 2020 and 2021’s great and okay tax returns, and they’ve been paid back with interest between 2022-2024.
I’m not a CPA or even willing to find out what tax laws and policies are in place that have been systematically fucking my household since 2020, but all I know is that when I do my taxes, the fact that I’m married, own a home, and having kids does absolutely nothing to my bottom line when it comes to filing taxes. And I mean that literally, when I get to the point in the tax software where I enter in information about my property and my kids, the number doesn’t even flinch. Not a single dollar saved on account of the things that once upon a time, people used to say would help one’s taxes.
I suppose marriage helps a little bit, because out of curiosity, I ran mythical wife’s and I’s numbers as individuals, and we would owed a noticeably higher debt, but like I said, my house, or my kids don’t affect a single fucking cent in my return as a whole.
The one thing that I do know is that both mythical wife and I did technically switch our jobs in the 2022 year, and I vaguely remember when I was filling out all my initial paperwork, I didn’t fill out a W-2 but a W-4 or whatever form has taken the place of the W-2. Somewhere in my allowances, myself or both mythical wife and I clearly checked something different from what we know, and both of us are not having nearly enough deducted from each paycheck, which is the primary killer for us.
I don’t really know what I have to alter in order to stop getting raped by the IRS come tax time, so I just opted to just have a straight set amount withheld each paycheck, with the hopes that the cumulative math on my withholdings is closer or exceeds what I’ve owed each of the last three years, with the hopes that when I run 2025 taxes in April in 2026, I won’t get as obliterated as we’ve been getting over the last few.
Because relying on marriage, homeownership and kids to bail us out in April is clearly fairy tales that started with once upon a time are clearly a dead thing of the past now.
