The marriage penalty affects married couples the most when both spouses earn an equivalent salary. When there is a big disparity in the income between spouses, the marriage penalty disappears. And in cases like yours, your joint tax liability might actually go down once you tie the knot.

Here's what I calculated. Assuming you don't itemize your deductions, and have no other tax breaks available to you such as student loan interest or higher education tax credits, here is your approximate 2006 federal tax liability if you file a single individual:

On $190k of income and $15k in 401k contributions, your tax liability would be about $43k. On $20k of income with no 401k, you husband would pay about $1,300 in taxes. So your total federal tax liability would be about $44k.

If you file a joint return with the same income, your federal tax liablity would be $39k. So you would save about $4,000 in federal taxes.

Remember, the income tax code was written when most households only had one income. That's why you save taxes in your situation, but married couples consisting of two working spouses who earn a similar amount of income often end us paying more in taxes.

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