Financial reasons not to marry or remarry

[doxydad]

[link:http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/04/13/reasons-not-to-marry-or-remarry/7648231/|

[Sheldon Cooper]

1. Here's an excerpt:

"Two can live as cheaply as one." This old saying is mostly true. However, when it comes to death, divorce, and taxes, two are probably better off financially if they don't marry. Intentionally or not, many federal and state laws reward couples that choose to live together without marriage.

Laws relating to worker's compensation insurance are one example of this. Someone whose spouse has died in a work-related accident may be eligible to receive a monthly benefit, paid for the rest of his or her life. However, most state laws provide that the benefits end if the recipient remarries.

This puts a real cost to remarrying. Consider a woman who, at age 50, loses her husband to a work-related accident and receives a settlement of $2,000 a month for life. Assuming she will live another 35 years and could invest the proceeds in a 3% bond, the present value of that income stream is $520,000. That means a person would need $520,000, invested at 3%, to give a monthly income of $2,000 for 35 years.

Therefore, if this woman fell in love and wanted to remarry two years into receiving the payments, the remaining 33 years of monthly payments she would forfeit has a value of $502,000. This puts a rather quantifiable cost on one's social, emotional and religious values.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Death, divorce, taxes and medical bills.

Medical bills which can be in many thousands of dollars.
for many legally married couples living on low income, those bills can wipe out all living expenses.

[Art_from_Ark]

3. A 3% bond?

Who is paying 3%? The best I've seen is a fraction of 1%.

[PasadenaTrudy]

4. We are

now in our 50s and still see no reason to marry. No kids, no house.

[Downwinder]

5. If your roommate gets a speeding ticket your insurance

rates don't go up.

[KamaAina]

6. I know a couple who have never married

because it would screw up their benefits. They both have disabilities.

[Kaleva]

8. I would lose my Group 5 VA benefits.

Snap benefits and Home Heating Credit would be gone too.

My ex and are are both disabled and we weren't eligible for a number of benefits when we were married because of our combined income put us over the top. Divorced, we qualify.

We've talked about getting remarried but the way the system is set up, that doesn't make financial sense.

[DFW]

7. Probably depends on the circumstances

My wife and I got married because we got invited to our wedding by my brother, and it seemed like the thing to do. We didn't even think about finances at the time (it probably would have come up if we had had more finances to think about! LOL).