Does your salary drop if your wife starts working?

[Aloe]

I was wondering if in other countries your salary also drops if your spouse starts working?
Here in Belgium, if your spouse works, your salary drops horribly. For example my hubby is making 1800 euro netto a month, and if i start working even part time, his salary netto will drop to 1400 a month. That is 22% decrease in netto income. Realistically right now i can earn about 1155 netto a month for full time work, so with the 400 we lose from hubby's pay, i would really be working for 755 euro a month. Now the funny part is, if i only work 20 hours a week and get 577 euro netto a month, hubby's salary still drops the same 400, so it would be like i'm working 20 hours a week for 177 euro a month!! How horrible is this?? Working in Belgium for 177 euro a month??? That is netto 2.2 euro per hour. I can see why people here do not get married, it is more profitable to not be married  
Is it also like this in other countries?

[Dave13]

Not in the US, but with the increase of income your federal taxes are higher.

[GQBlues]

....Is it also like this in other countries?

No. Not where we are....

A married couple can actually get a nicer tax benefits if their combined income is the same as a single person.

However, there's a fairly relative minor impact married couples will sustain, depending on their combined taxable 'Adjusted Gross Income', where certain creditable benefits gets taken away or minimized i.e. charitable contributions, mortgage interests, etc...

Of course, once you get past the threshold of upper middle-class and started to hit the 'rich' level, then better start looking for a great financial adviser and a creative accountant otherwise you'll get royally screwed.

[Aloe]

Not in the US, but with the increase of income your federal taxes are higher.

How much higher? If i worked, hubby's taxes would be 40% of income instead of current 22%

[GQBlues]

How much higher? If i worked, hubby's taxes would be 40% of income instead of current 22%

Use this as general base information.

Edited to add: I caution when making comparable analysis in this is to make sure you compile total benefit vs net income to get a clear indication of income parity.

[BC]

It's really quite simple:

Yes, taxes for one, the other or both will be higher.

Bottom line is that you need to decide if the additional money earned (net) at the end of the month is worth working for.

A tax professional will be able to let you know how much that is and scenarios to lower taxes as much as possible. 

The Belgian tax entity likely has online resources to help figure it out.

[acctBill]

Aloe never heard of such a thing and I've lived and worked in several European countries, although not Belgium. 

[vwrw]

My guess is that now you hubby has a higher take home pay after taxes because he has a dependent, you. If you start working, you are no longer a dependent, and as a result, he can no longer claim a deduction. The amount of taxes he has to pay increases, and his take home salary shrinks.

If my guess is correct, than not being married is as costly as being married to a working partner. If your hubby were not married, his take home pay would be the same as an individual married to a working partner has.

[Rubicon]

I was wondering if in other countries your salary also drops if your spouse starts working?
Here in Belgium, if your spouse works, your salary drops horribly. For example my hubby is making 1800 euro netto a month, and if i start working even part time, his salary netto will drop to 1400 a month. That is 22% decrease in netto income. Realistically right now i can earn about 1155 netto a month for full time work, so with the 400 we lose from hubby's pay, i would really be working for 755 euro a month. Now the funny part is, if i only work 20 hours a week and get 577 euro netto a month, hubby's salary still drops the same 400, so it would be like i'm working 20 hours a week for 177 euro a month!! How horrible is this?? Working in Belgium for 177 euro a month??? That is netto 2.2 euro per hour. I can see why people here do not get married, it is more profitable to not be married  
Is it also like this in other countries?

sounds like you should only get a job if you can find one that pays you under the table.

[SFandEE]

scandalous

[Aloe]

My guess is that now you hubby has a higher take home pay after taxes because he has a dependent, you. If you start working, you are no longer a dependent, and as a result, he can no longer claim a deduction. The amount of taxes he has to pay increases, and his take home salary shrinks.

If my guess is correct, than not being married is as costly as being married to a working partner. If your hubby were not married, his take home pay would be the same as an individual married to a working partner has.

Nope, with "single" status his pay is 230 euro netto higher than with "married to a person with income", so he only gets 170 euro for being married to a person without income, not 400

[Aloe]

scandalous

Exactly my sentiment.
For a country that is rapidly aging, i find it extremely weird to have policies that actually punish people for marrying. Now i see what those couples i asked meant, that it's better for them financially to stay unmarried. You know the funny part, if you work for about 2 years, you become eligible for a lifetime of unemployment support, which would bring more netto than actually working part-time. Looks like they are actually encouraging unemployment over part-time work.
I just read a topic on a belgian dog owners website about working and salary, and the women there are all saying they don't get even 10 euro netto an hour, if you count that in full time amount of hours per month, that means all the women who wrote there about their salary don't get even 1400 netto a month, this is such an extremely depressing picture. The future has never looked bleaker to me.

[Aloe]

It is actually extremely depressing to think about my future at this point. Lifetime of slavery for mega low wages without any hope of ever getting a nice home, and a nice car, and always scraping for some money, how depressing

[Aloe]

Maybe it is culture shock finally kicking in. Living in Moscow with my parents, i felt like the world is my oyster. Living here, it is getting more and more depressing to think about future, how bleak it is looking. Or is it just a reality check, now that i actually have to worry about finances.. Sigh.

[SANDRO43]

Aloe, you should really have someone knowledgeable about Belgian taxes clarify the situation for you .

Here in Italy one may consult for free an advisor employed by organisations like our trade unions. IINM, a married couple here also has the option of filing tax returns jointly or separately.

[Aloe]

Aloe, you should really have someone knowledgeable about Belgian taxes clarify the situation for you .

Here in Italy one may consult for free an advisor employed by organisations like our trade unions. IINM, a married couple here also has the option of filing tax returns jointly or separately.

i dunno where to get somebody competent. During integration courses they told us that in every city administration there is a person to help you with taxes for free, well when we called ours, they didn't have an answer to our question. Then we called the tax people themselves, and they also had no clue about our question, so eventually we just found the answer online.
The calculations i posted above are coming from online netto calculator, it calculates my hubby's salary correctly, so i am assuming that it calculates my potential salary also correctly.

[BC]

Aloe,

Your husband probably had a tax benefit by marrying you.  With an 1800 EUR net salary now it was probably 1400 or less before you married.  If you work that benefit will decrease.

IIRC singles pay the most taxes.

Think intent is to spread the jobs around by decreasing double earner households.  Better two families barely survive than one family succeed financially with the other landing on the social payroll.

[Aloe]

Aloe,

Your husband probably had a tax benefit by marrying you.  With an 1800 EUR net salary now it was probably 1400 or less before you married.  If you work that benefit will decrease.

IIRC singles pay the most taxes.

Think intent is to spread the jobs around by decreasing double earner households.  Better two families barely survive than one family succeed financially with the other landing on the social payroll.

No, his salary increased a little over 100 euro back then. I already posted above, single with his conditions earns 230 euro more than married to a person with income.

[Rubicon]

It is actually extremely depressing to think about my future at this point. Lifetime of slavery for mega low wages without any hope of ever getting a nice home, and a nice car, and always scraping for some money, how depressing

Welcome to the real world.  Now just imagine how much worse it could be if you get yourself into credit card debt.  Hopefully your husband has instilled in you the need to pay cash for things.  Now just imagine working a good job under the table for cash.  They do exist, I hope you can find one.  In my state some beggars make about $30,000 a year.  And since it is all cash, they never have to pay taxes on it!!  Of course they probably spend most of it on booze or drugs 

[Blues Fairy]

Think intent is to spread the jobs around by decreasing double earner households.  Better two families barely survive than one family succeed financially with the other landing on the social payroll.

What a screwed-up way of stimulating people to work and not stay on welfare; better keep everyone miserable than let some families make more than the others.  Here we have Aloe contemplating staying out of the workforce, as a result.  Less people working and earning = less business for locals = less jobs = less people earning.  Aloe, when you get to vote and face a choice who to vote for, keep this in mind.

[Aloe]

Oh i am not contemplating, no way in hell i'm going to work for 2 euro an hour, or even the 700 a month unless i get something else out of it (like experience for a better job)   I do not get any social support either though, so i am not really freeloading on anyone except hubby  
Gonna finish education and then be depressed in 5 years looking at the pathetic jobs and salaries they offer to someone with a master or postgraduate degree. I am laughing+crying in advance already. Nearly all the ads that want you to answer the phone and e-mail with clients and put in some data in excel want you to have no more no less a bachelor degree in languages. How freakin ridiculous and sad is that, that someone with a degree in languages is reduced to e-mailing and answering the phone, or that you need such a dgree in the first place just to email and answer the phone? Whatever happened to people who just study languages in their free time, without any degrees...But I sure hope if you get a master, then there is an actual translating/interpreting job out there. I haven't found any on the websites though, only found 2 jobs ads for very specific languages. I sure hope they hide those job ads on some secret website and not that there are actually 2 vacancies for an interpreter in the entire country.

[Aloe]

What i am actually contemplating is finishing my education and getting a divorce, so we can live together with unreduced incomes. 

[Mike78]

This is known as the Marriage penalty and exists in the US as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_penalty

Your best bet is to look into the tax system and see how to work it. Or work under the table...

[Misha]

What i am actually contemplating is finishing my education and getting a divorce, so we can live together with unreduced incomes. 

Likely would not work. In Canada, if you live together for a set amount of time, you are classified as a common-law couple, and you would be pretty much considered as married for tax purposes 

[acctBill]

This is known as the Marriage penalty and exists in the US as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_penalty

Your best bet is to look into the tax system and see how to work it. Or work under the table...

That would be a very large marriage penalty on a rather small income.  A monthly income of 1800 euros is not very much.  Usually the type of tax related "marriage penalties" described in the Wikipedia article involve a much larger total combined income.