In 3 countries I've lived in Europe taxes are the same if you're married or not if you make a similar amount as your partner. Only when one of the partners makes much less, it ends up being "beneficial" as the one making more gets the average "pulled down" as the allowance is 2x but income isn't 2x. If both make the same, all the tax rates and allowances would generally be the same, married or not.

Most people I know in Europe that got married did it because of kids, as the bureaucracy is much simpler in terms of legal protections for the child if anything bad happens to either one of the parents.

Interesting research here (much longer than one would expect): https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021....

Conclusion:

> in the majority of EU Member States, being married does not bring substantial financial gains or losses for a couple. For several countries we find important differences, mainly stemming from personal income taxation rules that either assess incomes jointly or apply marriage-related allowances or credits, and also from different benefit eligibility rules. While in seven countries married couples are substantially better off than cohabiting partners (marriage bonus), in four countries, the opposite holds true (marriage penalty).

When my wife was staying home with our son until he was 3yo, I got to write that into my tax returns and I got a tax bonus. A not working wife + a child = I didn't pay any tax and even got some money back from the government.

I'm not sure how it would work if we were not married. Would probably involve some more bureaucracy.

An of course, as you say, it's easier to handle child bureaucracy when married.

Yep, if the salaries are the same, no benefits. In our case we married because of taxes and inheritence. Both came with a house, being married reduced any inheritence tax loads and meant that the living partner ended up in sole ownership of the house, otherwise parts would go to the children, which would have required the involvement of courts (children under 18) or childrens approval (over 18) for selling of the house and so on. Which would truely suck, especially the first part.

For the record, I have seen some cases of the opposite, i.e. long established (and happily) married couples (each partner possessing a house) separating so that they can claim that each house is the residency of one and lower some of the real estate taxes, then (if one of the partner has less or no income, while the other has a good income) there could be fiscal advantages on alimony.