Take it from an attorney who works with couples from young to old and rich to poor, married and unwed: marriage is good for you. Statistics show that married couples are much happier and more prosperous than unmarried ones. Married parents are typically better than unmarried ones at giving their children secure homes. They build the foundation on which the next generation will build their own happy and prosperous futures.

The government validates marriage because married couples sustain families, which are the foundation of society. The Church makes marriage a sacrament because believers know that God's support is essential for married life. We know that, without God's help, husbands and wives will fail at their lifelong task: to put the interests of spouse and children ahead of yourself. Unfortunately, the number of people accepting secular and divine support for a marital union is waning: the rate of marriage in America has fallen 65 percent over the past five decades.

Let's consider a couple of the dividends given to those who still enter a bona fide marriage. Married couples who jointly file federal taxes usually pay less tax than they would as single people. For example, a bachelor who earns $100,000, in 2024, has a 22 percent federal tax rate, but a married couple filing jointly could make as much as $201,000 and get the same tax rate. Joint filing is most effective if one of the spouses takes home a heftier salary than the other spouse. It effectively doubles the income one would be allowed as a single taxpayer. Tax deductions also save married couples more than solo taxpayers: the standard tax deduction of $14,600 for an individual is doubled for a married couple filing jointly.

A spouse can use his spouse's earnings to pay for his own IRA. For example, if a husband is not able to work, he can fund an IRA in his name with income his wife earns. This means a wife who is the family breadwinner can invest twice as much in IRAs (half for her, half for her husband) as if she were single. That doubles the savings on her taxable income.

A spouse can make a gift of any amount to his or her spouse at any time, tax free. When one spouse dies and leaves everything to the surviving spouse, estate taxes are not payable until the surviving spouse dies. For prosperous couples whose combined estate exceeds $2 million and is subject to the Massachusetts estate tax, a credit shelter trust deflects the tax bill. This trust segregates the assets left by the first spouse to die from the property of the surviving spouse. The surviving spouse may use everything the deceased spouse placed in the trust without paying an estate tax.

For many, making a gift to a spouse is a strategy to save on nursing home bills. At $150,000 a year, nursing home expenses can dissipate one's life savings in a few years. About 2/3 of us will need MassHealth to help pay for nursing homes. Getting MassHealth funding is not easy: MassHealth does not pay nursing home bills for anyone with more than $2000 to his name.

MassHealth's application process can be as nerve-wracking as an audit by the IRS. Nonetheless, MassHealth cannot impede the right of a married person to give anything to his spouse at any time. It cannot object when a husband and homeowner, newly arrived in a nursing home, gives his half of the house to his wife so that she has title to the whole house and he is no longer on the deed. The husband has instantly divested himself of his biggest investment and is far along the path to poverty, the first criterion MassHealth sets for nursing home funding. His wife may continue to live in the house, which is now entirely hers. The couple is saving hundreds of thousands of dollars, a handsome reward for decades of life with the vows of marriage intact.



PHILIP ARCIDIACONO, ESQ., IS THE PRINCIPAL OF ARCHDEACON LAW ASSOCIATES, A LAW FIRM IN CONCORD AND LUNENBURG, MASSACHUSETTS, THAT SPECIALIZES IN ELDER LAW AND ESTATE PLANNING. HE CAN BE REACHED AT PA@ARCHDEACONLAW.COM. THE FIRM'S WEBSITE IS WWW.ARCHDEACONLAW.COM.