If we get married will we be better off?

H

Henry33

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I am co-habiting with my partner we have 1 child (4yrs) we bought our house 2 years ago (317k) and have a mortgage of 270k (approx. 1,300 pm). I am the main wage earner (50-55k). Partner is a painter (earns approx. 12k). Financially it’s a constant struggle, so romanticism aside, I’m wondering what difference getting married would make to my current monthly take home pay (approx. 3,100)?

All info and advice much appreciated.
 
Yes, you will get an additional €9,000 at the standard rate (based on the 2007 tax bands), which will save you €1,890 in tax over the year.
 
Thanks Nige,

Does that mean we would only benefit from an extra €1,890 per annum?

It doesn't seem a lot spread out over 12 months (€157.5 extra a month), or am I getting this all wrong?
 
Wow, I though it would be a bit more advantageous with combining tax free allowances etc.

I guess it would take a while to recover the costs of a wedding then ;-)
 
An Artist unfortunatly :( she does have Artist's Exemption but the annual earnings are below the taxable level anyway (as far as i know) which is why we thought that by combining both tax credits we'd be better off, but not that much better off it appears...
 
that's mad ... you actually have a decent set of wages, a modest mortgage, and one child and it's that tight!

What salary do people need to earn these days to get by?
 
I guess some people need more than they are earning because they simply live beyond their means.
 
if the financial side doesn't work for you for marrying, perhaps the legalities and security it provides especially with a kiddie could be worth doing. Things like widows pension (god forbid something happens one of you) etc. Don't mean to be morbid just there are more reliefs and assistance for couples if they are married and something happens one of them.
 
ClubMan said:
I guess some people need more than they are earning because they simply live beyond their means.
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Hold on a sec- We don't live past our means, we just feel we should be able to have more expenditure on current earnings allowing us to save etc. It’s easy to make a generalisation like that but honestly it’s not that helpful or relevant.
 
I wasn't referring specifically to you but on the other hand if you do find the finances "a constant struggle" on a net houshold income of c. €50K to the extent that you are looking at marriage as a way of easing the burden, then maybe some remedial action (increasing your earning capacity or economising/budgeting better) might be necessary.
 
Both options would offer some assistance for sure, however I thought that the tax incentives would have been more favorable, is there any difference if there is only one wage earner? (apologies if I am asking the same question again)
 
You can estimate the effect of marriage on the single and joint income situation using www.taxcalc.eu - however it may not account for the tax free status of our artist partner.
 
Is your wife earning her money through sales of her work?
If so, could she increase her sales? There is a lot of good info here, but apologies if she is doing a lot of this already.
http://www.artbusiness.com/artists.html

Sales of art are not great at the moment though, so if she has spare time could she take on teaching an evening class in the local secondary school, or doing portraits? especially coming up to christmas, people love charcoal sketches from photos as gifts, and they can be done quickly, cheap and cheerful.
 
Only thing is that any basic photo-editing package can give you charcoal, oil, water colour versions of your photos. thats what artists are up against i suppose
 
That's true, but some people do get these done as one-off special gifts. It might be worth putting an ad somewhere.
Someone I was talking to recently who has been in ceramics for years said that it's after getting really hard to make a living from art because so many people are doing different arty-crafty things compared to a few years ago.
 
Henry33 said:
An Artist unfortunatly :( she does have Artist's Exemption but the annual earnings are below the taxable level anyway (as far as i know) which is why we thought that by combining both tax credits we'd be better off, but not that much better off it appears...
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I reckon you would be better off by €3650/year currently. That's 21% of €9000 (€1890) plus your wifes Personal Tax Credit of €1760, which is transferable and which I don't think your wife currently gets the benefit of, obviously you'd need to check this.
 
michaelm said:
I reckon you would be better off by €3650/year currently. That's 21% of €9000 (€1890) plus your wifes Personal Tax Credit of €1760, which is transferable and which I don't think your wife currently gets the benefit of, obviously you'd need to check this.
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Yeah, that seems correct to me.
You also have a range of other tax benefits - although they only kick in if one or other of you were to die (sounds morbid, but it's something that must be considered, as the advantages are huge). There may also be issues with your pension (if applicable) if you were to pre-decease your partner, i.e benefits may be payable to a spouse, but not to a co-habitee etc.
One other thing worth looking into is to ensure that you're both availing of the maximum TRS relief, you probably are, but it does no harm to check out as this may well be increased again in this budget.
 
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