Final 12 months, he filed his earnings taxes, and has just lately filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy. With the chapter, he has now entered a five-year cost plan to pay his state and federal earnings taxes (principally penalties), and different debt together with pupil loans. 

He should pay $1,700 per 30 days for 5 years to the IRS. We are actually each 57 years outdated. He’s a veteran with a pension. I believe he can begin drawing his pension at age 62. So at age 62 his cash issues must be over! I like this man, and want to marry him.

He says we will get married anytime I need. If we had been to get married now, would I be answerable for paying off his Chapter 13 debt, which principally consists of IRS debt and pupil loans? I’m apprehensive about marrying him and having to pay his debt ought to he die earlier than it’s paid off. 

I’m additionally apprehensive that we’re getting older and we’ve spent all this time collectively and he may die earlier than we get married, and I’ll don’t have any declare to his pension. I grew to become a registered nurse 5 years in the past, and hopefully have 10 years left to work. I’m attempting to feverishly save for retirement. I do know it’s late. 

I purchased the home we stay in two years in the past, and I’ve $100,000 in my retirement account. 

I’m attempting to determine the smart cash factor for me to do. Thanks on your assist.

The Fianceé

Pricey Fianceé,

Let’s cope with the loans first, and the wedding second.

Federal pupil loans taken out earlier than you had been married are the only real duty of the recipient even when she or he is married; in case you married and your husband had been to die, that debt dies with him. No matter you determine, you need to preserve all mortgage obligations separate, and don’t file joint taxes.

On condition that your associate incurred this debt previous to you getting married, this IRS debt belongs to him — and him alone. For married {couples}, a partner can file an Injured Partner Standing if their tax refund is intercepted by the IRS as a consequence of their partner’s tax liabilities. 

In an effort to obtain your partner’s Social Safety advantages you’d should be married for not less than one 12 months. Should you had kids collectively, which I do know you don’t, that one-year rule wouldn’t apply. (A divorced partner will need to have been married for 10 years to obtain a former partner’s advantages.)

I urge warning about your perception that every one of his cash worries shall be over when he finishes paying the IRS the month-to-month penalties. Earlier than marrying, you need to sit down with a monetary adviser and undergo all your property and liabilities collectively, together with whether or not it’s value marrying for his pension if he ought to predecease you.

No matter led him to get into monetary straits within the first occasion — burying his head within the sand as an alternative of submitting his annual taxes and/or not staying on prime of his pupil loans — won’t go away simply since you each have a hoop in your finger. It could be that his pension just isn’t sufficiently big to justify getting married.

A member of the Moneyist Fb Group put it extra bluntly: “I can’t see how his pension could be definitely worth the threat she’d be assuming by marrying him. He’s confirmed that his monetary habits aren’t good. Why take the danger that he’s going to do one thing equally silly as soon as they’re legally certain?”

Deal with making the subsequent 10-plus years depend by paying off your mortgage, and build up your financial savings and Social Safety. Individuals born after 1960 aren’t eligible for full Social Safety advantages till 67 years of age, though retirees stay eligible for lowered advantages beginning on the age of 62.

How a lot pupil debt does he have left? It appears like your title is the one one on the deed of your private home. Will he contribute to your dwelling bills? Should you marry, I counsel towards commingling your funds and ask that you simply preserve your private home in your title solely. Protect your monetary independence, and don’t depend on him.

You can electronic mail The Moneyist with any monetary and moral questions associated to coronavirus at qfottrell@marketwatch.com, and observe Quentin Fottrell on Twitter.

Take a look at the Moneyist personal Fb group, the place we search for solutions to life’s thorniest cash points. Readers write in to me with all types of dilemmas. Publish your questions, inform me what you need to know extra about, or weigh in on the most recent Moneyist columns.

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