Owning a house, Marriage, taxes work against me nyc brooklyn?

Question

So I bought a house in January 2008, planning to get married Sept 2008, and did some work on the house. Spoke to an accountant recently and he said it would be more beneficial for me to officially get married January 2009 so I can get my Max return back. Is there any truth to this. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Did you ask him what his reasoning was?

Answer 2

First thing - If you have an accountant who won't explain things and keep explaining things until you understand it completely, it is time to find a new accountant.

Second - I hate to see you setting up your life's major events depending on how you will have the most money.  So, do you really want to tell your fiance they are important but money is more important.

Third - Your marital status has nothing to do with your house or the money you put into it being deductible, if that is what you think he meant.  And you won't lose the interest or anything at a combined income of $110K.  Maybe he thought you would EACH be making that much because at $220K you do start to lose deductibility of things.

Lastly - a word to the wise.  Accountants are great people and I have quite a few who are good personal friends.  But there are a lot types of accounting and tax accounting is a specialty that most general accountants learn very little of in school because corporate and small business accounting is where the year-around, full-time jobs are.  I teach taxes and I have had 3 CPAs in my classes.  (CPAs are the top of the accounting heap in that most have masters degrees and all have to take some extremely tough tests to earn those letters after their name.)  But all 3 of those CPAs came to my class and admitted that they didn't know taxes very well and that is why they were in my class.  And it surprised me but none of the three were anywhere near the best students in the classes either!  So don't be overly impressed by the title accountant or even CPA unless  you know they have substantial experience in taxation.  The top of the heap in tax accounting is called an Enrolled Agent - that is somebody who has passed the only tests that the IRS gives to tax preparers - and of those who take at least one of the tests, only 30% pass all of them.  (But I may be biased in that I am an EA.)

So if this accountant can't explain it to you (and I seriously doubt it if he can), I would just marry that special person before they find out that they almost came in second to a stack of green pieces of papers with presidents.  And congratulations.