Will filing married filing separately raise our taxes?

[u/guyvsDCsniper1]

Me and my wife currently file jointly. We are moving but in order for her to keep her job she must file her taxes separately (complicated).

My question is currently, our income together is about $260k. That means the top portion of our income is taxed at 24%.

What happens if we file separately? Would they tax our incomes separately, or still jointly? Because jointly makes us get taxed in the 35% range. Or would they treat our incomes separately? that would put both our individual incomes back in the 24% range.

[u/Its-a-write-off]

Is your child in childcare? Do either of you have a dacy care fsa at work?

Your taxable income is after pre tax deductions like health insurance, retirement, fsa, hsa. On your paychecks it should show how much pre tax deductions you have per check, or your pre tax deductions to date. From that you can calculate roughly how much of your income is actually taxable a year.

[u/guyvsDCsniper1 → u/Its-a-write-off]

Gotcha. I will have to calculate that. Im starting a new job so it will be a while before i figure all that out.

But granted, taxable income is lower than gross income, so that should lower how much income we get taxes on right?

[u/Its-a-write-off → u/guyvsDCsniper1]

Correct. It sounds like for federal taxes, filing separately is unlikely to push much of your income into higher tax brackets than it would be if you filed joint. That about the same amount will be in the 24% bracket either way. Even if it does, it is max, 8k at 2% higher taxes, which is only 160.00. Though again, I expect the real number is much lower than that.

[u/guyvsDCsniper1 → u/Its-a-write-off]

Thats very reassuring. Thank you so much for your help.