Half the men in Seattle are never-married singles, census data shows

I do want to point out that never-married by looking at legal paperwork is a blunt instrument. There are reasons, especially for dual high earners, to not get a marriage license. Examples of tax-related things that don’t double when married;

-Income tax brackets above about $200k

-SALT cap

-Mortgage interest deduction

-HSA contributions (if have children)

-Dependent care FSA contributions

Yeah this sort of analysis really requires survey data. As a widowed male, i gained an appreciation of the complexity of things.

I’m not dating someone young enough to be my daughter, so the pool of available women consists of divorcees, widows, long-term single and various flavors of married and dating. Divorced people and widows have strong incentives, as spousal support and survivors benefits for children are contingent on not being re-married.

Also, if you’re not planning to have children with a partner and have money that’s worth litigating over, (or property that was your late spouse that should go to a child) marriage complicates that.

- Collapsing two legal entities into effectively one. In the days of the healthcare cartel and other hyperfinancialized shakedowns, this seems like a poor idea. Corpos hire armies of lawyers to create new legal entities so their owners can escape liability. It seems foolish to sign a piece of paper that undermines your main access to that dynamic.

Isn't this all solved by just filing separately, not jointly?

Nope. It's a reason some might note get married.

No, for taxes, married filing separately is a different category than single. Married filing separately results in a higher tax bill than married filing jointly for most couples.

Yep. I’d be eligible for more government benefits and pay lower taxes if I weren’t married. It would also be easier to set up various aspects of a business such as officers, etc since we would not be considered “related”.

Married filed separately effectively locks you out of a lot of benefits when compared to unmarried filing single, or married filing jointly.

The Sybil attack reigns supreme!

There are places in the tax code where Single != Married Filing Separately.

One pertinent example is that Washington State's capital gains tax applies after $270k per single person, per married couple filing jointly OR split in half for married filing separately. Which could be a theoretical $18.9k/year difference in taxes.

Yeah, that particular deduction reeks of some big brain energy. My family is going to be outta here by the end of the year, hopefully.