Editor: There are two things certain in life, death and taxes. In the case of married senior citizens, they get both and sometimes at the same time.

I lost my wife of 51 years to cancer. Even though expected, it was still devastating. Both of us were on Social Security. I knew I would lose her Social Security. I had planned for that. But what I did not know was along with the Social Security loss and personal exemption, I would lose the married filing jointly tax status. This meant that the $30,000 standard deduction for joint filing status was reduced to $15,000. So in total I lost her social security, tax deduction and favorable filing status. Adding it all up to a total loss of approximately $40,000. My income tax for both state and federal went up. Now I owe $2,600 in additional taxes

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