Choosing The Right Filing Status For Your 2025 Tax Return |
Your filing status is one of the first decisions you make on your federal income tax return, and it impacts your tax bill more than most people realize. It determines your tax brackets, your standard deduction, and which credits and deductions you can claim. In some cases, it also determines whether you’re required to file a return at all.
It’s easy to treat filing status as a quick checkbox and move on. But getting it wrong can affect the rest of your return. Here’s what you need to know to get it right.
You’ll find five filing statuses on a federal income tax return:
For federal income tax purposes, your marital status is determined under state law as of the last day of the calendar year. It’s not more complicated than that. It doesn’t matter whether you got married on January 1 or December 30, and it doesn’t matter whether you separated in February or December.
If you are married on December 31, you are considered married for the entire tax year. If you are divorced or legally separated under the laws of your state on December 31, you are not married for that tax year.
If you’re not married as of December 31, you can choose to file as single. For many people, this is straightforward. You’re unmarried, you file as single, and you move on.
Where taxpayers get into trouble is assuming that “single” describes your lifestyle rather than a legal status for tax purposes. Living alone doesn’t make you single. Being the sole wage earner doesn’t make you single. Even being separated doesn’t automatically make you single unless separation is legally recognized under your state’s laws (some states, like Pennsylvania and Texas, don’t have a formal “separation” status).
If you don’t meet the legal definition, filing as single isn’t an option—no matter how neatly it might seem to fit your personal situation.
For the 2025 tax year, the standard deduction for single taxpayers is $15,750.
If you are married at year-end, you’ll likely file as married filing jointly. That’s how most married........