Civil vs. Religious Marriage

• The Internal Revenue Service does not differentiate between marriages sanctified by a church, temple or any other religious order and a civil wedding officiated over by purely secular authorities such as judges and civil servants. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits the IRS, a federal agency, and Congress itself from providing favorable tax treatment to one kind of wedding over another.
  
  

Common Law Marriages

• The IRS does recognize common law marriages, provided the following criteria apply: The couple must be in a common law marriage recognized by the state in which they hold their residency, or they must have become married under common law in another state and meet that state's recognition. Currently, only nine states and the District of Columbia recognize common law marriages outright (Alabama, Colorado, Kansas, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Iowa, Montana, Oklahoma and Texas). Georgia, Idaho, Ohio, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania have grandfathered in common law marriages that existed prior to a specific year, but do not recognize new common law marriages.
  
  

Same Sex Marriages

• While the IRS recognizes common law marriages which are recognized by the individual states, the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits the IRS from granting favorable tax status as a married couple to same-sex partners.
  
  

Filing Jointly vs. Separately

• If you qualify as a married couple, compute your taxes two different ways--as a joint return and as two married individuals filing separately. The difference could be significant if one spouse has a much lower income tax bracket than the other, or if filing separately will enable one spouse to qualify for a valuable tax credit while combining returns would eliminate eligibility.