Beyond the social convention that "it's the thing to do" at a certain point in a relationship, some reasons are:
- Marriage provides financial assurance for a spouse who will defer their career to raise children.
- Some friends and family (particularly those of the spouse) will absolutely treat you differently when you're married to someone versus in a long-term unmarried relationship.
- Depending on the jurisdiction, spouses have certain rights that unmarried partners do not, e.g. with regards to the legal system and hospital visitation. I know a couple that got married because one of them was an activist/journalist and frequently attended protests in which he was at risk of arrest.
- In some circumstances, it makes it easier to purchase a home together and make other large joint financial investments.
- Under some tax regimes, you pay lower taxes when married.
- U.S. citizens living abroad in a low-tax country with a foreign spouse can engage in advantageous tax planning.
So, although the question-asker is being downvoted, your response does actually cover interesting discussion topics, and to summarise, the answer could be that the systems and conventions need to change?
- I believe in the UK (where I live) one has all of the legal and financial implications automatically when a relationship reaches a certain age (3 years I believe). Legally you would be treated the same way as if you were married.
- Friends and family; My family certainly feel this way, my wife's I'm not sure. I'm "mixed"-culture/race/etc so some of my family have different cultural views. My wife and I don't feel strongly either way about how our children deal with this when they grow up, so perhaps our (millenial) generation is changing the "social" side of it already?
- Legally I believe you have all of the rights you describe, however, it may be more difficult to prove the relationship without a piece of paper. We've had to present our marriage certificate for various things relating to our child(ren) for example.
- It _should_ have no effect on your ability to purchase a home in the UK
- There is a tax benefit for low income couples in the UK, but I believe our law doesn't specify "married".
- I don't know how any of this affects UK citizens abroad as I've never looked into it.
> I believe in the UK (where I live) one has all of the legal and financial implications automatically when a relationship reaches a certain age (3 years I believe). Legally you would be treated the same way as if you were married.
Not an expert on the UK, but here in Canada common law marriage is absolutely a thing. Just filled in my 2021 census yesterday and one of the selectable marital status was "common law" and many government documents refer to the status. Common law relationships are generally much easier to dissolve, but courts have held them as strong as legal marriages, especially if the relationship lasts decades and includes children. They form without any specific action beyond time spent living together.
Interesting reading, thanks for that. I have learned something. I was intentionally liberal with my use of the word "believe", because it seems difficult (to me) to prove the relationship without that piece of paper. I imagine (note I say imagine, this is based on no evidence or research),you could challenge it successfully in a court of law though, if required, for some reason?
The myth aside, I don't think you have "no" rights, the first link says "fewer". It's really hard to prove something without an "official" document though so I understand how it could be more complicated.
I think that in many (most?) countries nowadays, marriage is already no more than just a legal status that offers those practical points, so I am not sure if anything needs to change.
You don't have to get a ceremony/ring/party, go at the church or whatever your culture/religion associates with the act of getting married.
You can just sign the contract privately, which makes you legally married.
Same for divorce, I believe it only gets complicated when you fight about children, money and assets, otherwise you can both just decide to stop the contract.
Also in the UK, plus one to everything above (with the caveat I have no experience in the children area)
For friends and family, the older relatives on both sides I believe just assume we're married.
There is one difference, and that is in default treatment. If I died/was rendered otherwise incapable of communicating my desires, there is now an onus on my partner to prove that we are in the relationship she claims we are. That exists with marriage too except it's "solved" by a marriage certificate.
Disclaimer: I'm not a tax advisor and this is not tax advice. It might not even be correct. Do your own research and consult an attorney about your specific situation. For entertainment purposes only and so on.
U.S. citizens must pay taxes on worldwide income, regardless of what country they live in. Citizens of almost all other countries are not required to do this (they pay income taxes to the country where they live and/or earn income). It's a remarkably raw deal for U.S. citizens abroad, considering that we don't get any services to go along with our tax obligations. You'd think we could at least pop into the consulate for one of those COVID vaccines that are now so plentiful stateside that they can hardly give 'em away, but no.
Now, if you're a U.S. citizen and you live abroad in a country with no income tax (e.g. Monaco) or low income tax (e.g. Bulgaria), and you earn more than the ~$100k limit of the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE), then you're going to be paying U.S. tax, because you won't have paid enough foreign tax to deduct it all under the Foreign Tax Credit. Also all of your non-"earned" income is going to be subject to U.S. tax - dividends, capital gains, etc.
But let's say you live in Monaco (0%), Bulgaria (10% flat), Dubai (0%), Panama (25% top bracket), or the Cayman Islands (0%) and your spouse is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident (not a "U.S. person" for IRS purposes). If your excess (> $100k) family income is credited to your spouse (or a company owned by your spouse), and that income is not generated in the USA (e.g. not from a U.S.-based business, rental properties in the U.S., U.S. stocks, or business trips to the U.S.), and you file with status "Married Filing Separately" on your U.S. tax return, then your spouse's income is not included on your tax return.
Say you do consulting out there on your little island in the Bahamas, and your foreign spouse sets up a consulting company and hires you as an employee. You get paid a salary by the company that is conveniently under the FEIE limit and thus pay no U.S. tax. Your spouse gets the dividends and pays no tax on them. So long as this isn't entirely a paper fiction arrangement wherein you do 100% of the work but your spouse gets basically all of the money, for U.S. tax purposes it ought to be kosher. (Again disclaimer: not a tax lawyer, this could be wildly incorrect, consult your own advisor about your specific situation)
Your family company's profits get invested into real estate (again in low-tax / no-tax jurisdictions) in your spouse's name. The passive income from that again flows to your spouse for tax purposes, and as long as you keep filing "Married Filing Separately", your spouse is invisible for U.S. tax purposes and no U.S. tax is due.
This is the only way that I know of, short of renouncing citizenship, for a high-earning U.S. citizen expat to avoid taxation of their worldwide income. You still have to file a bunch of paperwork, though. Also, due to a stupid quirk of IRS policy, because your spouse doesn't have a SSN/ITIN, you can't complete a 1040 in the e-file system and you have to file a paper return. Hope you FedEx'd it to the right address, because only a few IRS offices will accept courier deliveries.
You must also be careful about how you set things up for estate planning purposes. If you both live in the U.S. then there is in general no estate tax due when one spouse dies and bequeaths their assets to the other spouse. If you live in a different country, then it can get very complicated! Depending on who owns the assets, what country they're located in, who owned them before marriage, whether they were "gifted" to the other spouse over time or not, etc., the surviving spouse may owe substantial taxes in one country or the other.
Beyond the social convention that "it's the thing to do" at a certain point in a relationship, some reasons are:
- Marriage provides financial assurance for a spouse who will defer their career to raise children.
- Some friends and family (particularly those of the spouse) will absolutely treat you differently when you're married to someone versus in a long-term unmarried relationship.
- Depending on the jurisdiction, spouses have certain rights that unmarried partners do not, e.g. with regards to the legal system and hospital visitation. I know a couple that got married because one of them was an activist/journalist and frequently attended protests in which he was at risk of arrest.
- In some circumstances, it makes it easier to purchase a home together and make other large joint financial investments.
- Under some tax regimes, you pay lower taxes when married.
- U.S. citizens living abroad in a low-tax country with a foreign spouse can engage in advantageous tax planning.