Which tax option is best for married couple earning 28k each

Sammett · 22-09-2018 01:58PM #1

Hello,

We are married and each of us earn 28k for a year. Seperate or joint? Which one should we choose to avoid more tax cut? I guess seperate would be better but I am not sure. Can you help me to decide please? Thanks in advance.

wench · 22-09-2018 02:07PM

Go for joint. At that salary level there probably isn't any difference, but it will never be worse than single, and can make life easier later.

dudara · 22-09-2018 02:57PM

Moved from the Help desk to the Taxation forum

dudara

namenotavailablE · 22-09-2018 06:46PM

I'd second what wench said- 'joint assessment' is the way to go but at the specific salary values it isn't of any additional value.

It's advantageous if one person is above €34550 and the other below.

Sammett · 22-09-2018 09:42PM

I've found a tax calculator and as far as I understand if we choose single we would save 2.640 euro for a year. Is this correct or am I missing something because you both advice joint assesment?

I cannot post links or images as I am a new user it says. So if you search for "tax world ie joint tax comparison tool" you can see the calculation. Thanks for your help. Appreciated.

namenotavailablE · 22-09-2018 11:33PM

That calculator url]https://www.taxworld.ie/joint-tax-comparison-tool/[/url seems to have an error.

It is taxing the 'increase' (€13200, where you enter €28000 for both higher and lower earner) at the higher 40% rate under the joint assessment option. If you refer to the 'tax rates and bands' table shown on this page url]https://revenue.ie/en/personal-tax-credits-reliefs-and-exemptions/tax-relief-charts/index.aspx[/url you can see that a jointly assessed couple are taxed at 20% on the first €42800 of income with the possibility of increasing that by up to €24800 [in 2017] at 20%. Any amount over the sum of €42800 + increase is taxed at 40%.
The taxworld calculator is applying the 40% rate instead instead of the 20% rate- seems to be a bug, I'd guess.

Which tax option is best for married couple earning 28k each

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