A few days ago, one of my TikTok followers asked me how getting married this upcoming week would affect her taxes.

She wasn’t asking about the wedding. She wasn’t asking about the dress. She wasn’t asking about the honeymoon.

She was asking some real-life stuff: “Is this about to jack up my taxes?”

And the honest answer is: yes — getting married will change some things about your taxes, but not necessarily in a bad way.

Getting married doesn’t automatically mean you’ll owe or get a bigger refund. What it does change is how the IRS looks at you, your filing status, how your combined income is taxed, and which deductions and credits you qualify for. And if you’re self-employed or juggling multiple income streams, these changes matter even more.

In this post, I’ll break down what getting married really changes tax-wise, what your filing options are, and how to avoid the biggest mistake newly married couples make.

First, Let’s Talk About What It Actually Changes

Getting married doesn’t change your past tax returns. It doesn’t go back and rewrite last year. What it does change is how you’re treated going forward — your filing status, how your income is combined and taxed, and how the IRS expects you to be paying in throughout the year.

The IRS no longer looks at you as two completely separate people for tax purposes (at least if you file jointly). You’re now choosing between Married Filing Jointly or Married Filing Separately, and that one choice changes how your entire tax return is structured.

It affects your tax brackets because now your incomes are being stacked together.

When you file jointly, the IRS is looking at your combined household income, not just what you make individually. Two people who were each sitting comfortably in a lower bracket on their own can easily push into higher brackets together. That doesn’t mean all your income is taxed at a higher rate, but it does change the math and the final result.

Then it affects which credits and deductions you qualify for, and how quickly some of them phase out.

A lot of tax credits and deductions have income limits. When your incomes are combined, you can suddenly make “too much” for things you used to qualify for — or your benefit gets reduced. This is one of the reasons some couples are surprised when their refund is smaller (or disappears) after getting married.

Married Filing Jointly vs. Married Filing Separately: Which One Should You Choose?

Married Filing Jointly means you and your spouse file one tax return together and combine your income, deductions, and credits. For most couples, this produces the best result because you usually pay less total tax, you qualify for more credits and deductions, and the income limits for many tax benefits are more generous. It’s also simpler from a paperwork standpoint.

The tradeoff is that you’re both responsible for what’s on that return. If there’s tax due, penalties, or an audit, both of you are on the hook. And if one spouse has tax issues or isn’t compliant, it can affect both of you — unless you file an injured spouse claim. We won’t go into that here, but it’s something to be aware of.

On the other hand, Married Filing Separately means each spouse files their own tax return and reports only their own income and expenses. This can make sense in specific situations, like when one spouse is on an income-based student loan repayment plan, one spouse has tax debt or IRS issues, or there are legal or liability reasons to keep things separate. In some rare cases, it can even produce a better result.

The downside is that this is where most people get burned. When you file separately, you lose or severely limit access to a lot of valuable tax benefits — including credits for dependents, education, student loan interest, and others. The income limits are also much tighter across the board.

If You File Jointly, Make Sure You Both Update Your W-4

If you do decide to file Married Filing Jointly, there’s one step you cannot skip: both of you need to update your W-4.

This is the part that most newly married couples don’t do. They change their filing status on the tax return… but they never change their W-4s at work.

So what happens?

Their paychecks are still being withheld like they’re single (or like only one income exists), but the IRS is now taxing them on combined household income. That gap is how couples end up owing taxes their first year filing together.

Section 2 of the W-4 is where you tell the IRS that your household has more than one income. If you skip this section, your withholding is almost guaranteed to be wrong.

Getting married stacks two incomes together. If your withholding doesn’t change to reflect that, the math will catch up to you at tax time.

The Bottom Line

Getting married doesn’t go back and change your old tax returns. What it does change is how the IRS looks at you going forward — your filing status, how your income is taxed, and how much you should be paying in during the year.

You do have a choice between Married Filing Jointly and Married Filing Separately, and you should choose the option that gives you the better tax benefit for your situation. But if you choose to file jointly and don’t update your W-4 — especially Section 2 — you’re setting yourself up for a surprise tax bill.

Most of the time, when newly married couples owe, it’s not because of some weird tax rule.

It’s because the plan didn’t change when the household income changed.

I wrote a step-by-step guide that walks you through exactly how to update your W-4 (including Section 2) so your withholding is based on your combined income, not just your individual job.