Marriage Tax Calculator
Compare filing jointly against two single returns on the same combined income, to see whether marriage costs you a penalty or hands you a bonus.
Marriage Tax Calculator: with the default inputs, marriage penalty (+) or bonus (−) is $0.
Wages and other ordinary income before deductions. Exclude pre-tax 401(k) and HSA contributions.
The penalty is largest when two similar high incomes are combined.
Adds each state's own schedule. Several states do not double their brackets for joint filers, which creates a state-level penalty of its own.
Tax filing jointly minus the tax the two of you would pay as single filers.
- Result
- Neutral — filing jointly costs essentially the same
- Tax filing jointly
- $35,140
- Tax as two single filers
- $35,140
- Your tax if single
- $17,570
- Partner's tax if single
- $17,570
- Federal share of the difference
- $0
- State share of the difference
- $0
- Combined income
- $240,000
- Difference as a share of income
- 0%
Assumptions
- Federal and state ordinary income tax only, computed by the site's income tax calculator — no credits, payroll tax, capital gains rates, AMT, net investment income tax or additional Medicare tax.
- The unmarried counterfactual is two single returns. An unmarried couple with a qualifying child could often use head-of-household status instead, which would narrow the penalty or widen the bonus.
- Both people take the standard deduction unless itemized amounts are entered; itemized deductions are summed on the joint return and kept separate on the single returns. No SALT cap is applied.
- State tax uses the selected state's published schedule, standard deduction and personal exemption for the tax year shown with the results; local and city income taxes are excluded.
- Married filing separately is not modelled — it is worse than filing jointly in nearly every case.
| Filing jointly | Two single filers | Difference | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Federal income tax | $35,140 | $35,140 | $0 |
| State income tax | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Total income tax | $35,140 | $35,140 | $0 |
| Income after income tax | $204,860 | $204,860 | $0 |
A positive difference is a penalty; a negative one is a bonus.
How this is worked out
The formula
Marriage penalty (or bonus) = tax(joint return on combined income)
− [ tax(single return on income A) + tax(single return on income B) ]
Positive = penalty (marriage costs you). Negative = bonus (marriage saves you).
Both sides use the same IRS rate schedules and standard deductions as the income tax calculator:
2026 from Rev. Proc. 2025-32, 2025 from Rev. Proc. 2024-40 as amended. State tax, when a state is
selected, uses that state's own published schedule.Open How it’s calculated above to see this worked through with your own numbers.
What you enter
- Tax year
- Choose one of 2 options.2026 (return filed in 2027) · 2025 (return filed in 2026)
- Your gross income
- Wages and other ordinary income before deductions. Exclude pre-tax 401(k) and HSA contributions.in dollars · 0 or more · defaults to 120000
- Your partner's gross income
- The penalty is largest when two similar high incomes are combined.in dollars · 0 or more · defaults to 120000
- State
- Adds each state's own schedule. Several states do not double their brackets for joint filers, which creates a state-level penalty of its own.Alabama · Alaska — no income tax · Arizona · Arkansas · California · Colorado · Connecticut · Delaware · District of Columbia · Florida — no income tax · Georgia · Hawaii · Idaho · Illinois · Indiana · Iowa · Kansas · Kentucky · Louisiana · Maine · Maryland · Massachusetts · Michigan · Minnesota · Mississippi · Missouri · Montana · Nebraska · Nevada — no income tax · New Hampshire — no income tax · New Jersey · New Mexico · New York · North Carolina · North Dakota · Ohio · Oklahoma · Oregon · Pennsylvania · Rhode Island · South Carolina · South Dakota — no income tax · Tennessee — no income tax · Texas — no income tax · Utah · Vermont · Virginia · Washington — no income tax · West Virginia · Wisconsin · Wyoming — no income tax · Federal only
- Your itemized deductions(under More options)
- Used only if the total beats the standard deduction. The two figures are added together on the joint return.in dollars · 0 or more · defaults to 0
- Your partner's itemized deductions(under More options)
- A number.in dollars · 0 or more · defaults to 0
What you get back
- Marriage penalty (+) or bonus (−)main answer
- Tax filing jointly minus the tax the two of you would pay as single filers.
- Result
- Tax filing jointly
- Tax as two single filers
- Your tax if single
- Partner's tax if single
- Federal share of the difference
- State share of the difference
- Combined income
- Difference as a share of income
What this assumes
- Federal and state ordinary income tax only, computed by the site's income tax calculator — no credits, payroll tax, capital gains rates, AMT, net investment income tax or additional Medicare tax.
- The unmarried counterfactual is two single returns. An unmarried couple with a qualifying child could often use head-of-household status instead, which would narrow the penalty or widen the bonus.
- Both people take the standard deduction unless itemized amounts are entered; itemized deductions are summed on the joint return and kept separate on the single returns. No SALT cap is applied.
- State tax uses the selected state's published schedule, standard deduction and personal exemption for the tax year shown with the results; local and city income taxes are excluded.
- Married filing separately is not modelled — it is worse than filing jointly in nearly every case.
About this calculator
The US tax code does not treat two people the same way before and after a wedding. Sometimes marrying saves money and sometimes it costs money, and which one you get depends almost entirely on how similar the two incomes are. This page runs the same combined income twice — once through the married-filing-jointly schedule, once as two separate single returns — and shows the difference.
Where the bonus comes from
For most of the bracket structure, the joint thresholds are exactly double the single ones. That means a couple with one earner gets a large bonus: a $200,000 single income is taxed as if it were two $100,000 incomes, so half of it drops into much cheaper brackets. The bigger the gap between the two incomes, the bigger the bonus. A single-earner household typically saves several thousand dollars a year purely from the filing status.
Where the penalty comes from
Two things break the doubling. First, the top federal bracket: for 2026 the 37% rate starts at $640,600 for a single filer but at $768,700 jointly — not $1,281,200. Two people earning $400,000 each pay 37% on income that neither would have paid 37% on alone. Second, and often larger in practice, state tax: many states use the same brackets for joint filers as for single ones, which manufactures a penalty at far more ordinary incomes. Pick your state from the dropdown to see it.
Reading the chart
The second chart is the one worth studying. It holds your combined income fixed and slides the split from 100/0 to 50/50. The line falls as the split becomes lopsided and rises as the incomes converge — the penalty is always worst when two people earn the same amount, and it turns into a bonus somewhere on the way to a single earner. If you are deciding whose salary to grow, or whether a second earner should return to work, that curve is the shape of the tax consequence.
What this deliberately leaves out
Married couples cannot elect to file as two singles, so this is a comparison against being unmarried, not a filing choice. The comparison also ignores the credits where marriage bites hardest: the earned income credit produces sharp penalties for lower-income couples, and the child tax credit, education credits, student loan interest deduction, IRA deduction phase-outs, the net investment income tax and the additional Medicare tax all have thresholds that are less than double for joint filers. An unmarried couple with children could often file one return as head of household, which is more favourable than the two single returns modelled here. Payroll taxes are unaffected by marriage. And there are large non-tax effects — health insurance, Social Security spousal and survivor benefits, income-driven student loan repayment — that can dwarf everything on this page.
Frequently asked questions
▸Is there really a marriage penalty?
Yes, but it is not universal. Couples with two similar incomes can pay more than they would unmarried, mostly through the top federal bracket and through state schedules that do not widen for joint filers. Couples with one dominant earner almost always pay less.
▸Should we file separately to avoid the penalty?
Almost never. Married filing separately uses brackets that are half the joint ones, disqualifies you from several credits, and requires both spouses to itemize if either does. It usually costs more than filing jointly, not less.
▸Which incomes produce the biggest penalty?
Two high, roughly equal incomes. The federal 37% bracket for joint filers begins at $768,700 in 2026 rather than twice the $640,600 single threshold, so equal high earners lose the most. At ordinary incomes the penalty is usually a state-level effect.
▸Does this include the child tax credit or the earned income credit?
No. It is income tax before credits. The earned income credit in particular creates significant marriage penalties at low incomes, and the child tax credit phases out at thresholds that are not double for joint filers.
▸Where do the tax brackets come from?
The same tables as the income tax calculator on this site — IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 for 2026 and Rev. Proc. 2024-40 as amended for 2025, plus each state's own published rate schedule. Nothing is reimplemented here; this page runs that engine three times and subtracts.
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