According to the latest information which the IRS posts on their website, your filing status as married or single is determined by your status on the last day of the year. In other words, if start the year as single and don’t get married until December 30th of the year for which you’re filing, it’s the same as if you had spent the entire year married.
My question is, has it always been like that, or is this a new regulation?
It isn’t a new regulation. I am not sure if it has always been the rule, but it has been for at least the past five or six years.
It has been that way for quite some time.
OARN, my ex-wife and I waited until New Year’s Day to reconcile (mistake #2) a while back so that she could file “Head of Household” since she was not living with me but was maintaining a seperate household with our son and had done so for more than six months of the previous year. It made for a nice little bonus that year, especially since I had spent a great deal of that year as a full-time student and hadn’t made much in the way of taxable income. We got about $3000 more back than we would have received filing jointly.
I’m not saying it ended up being worth it.
This was in 1993, so the rule has been in effect at least seven years.
It goes way, way back… At least 30 years.
A tax scam among the rich, way back in the 70s, was to go to someplace like Bermuda or the Bahamas over winter vacation, get divorced on December 30 and then remarried on January 2. Thus, you could claim (under the tax rules) to be single on December 31 hence file singly and pay less taxes (under the rules in force at the time.)