<prompt> Human: Ive always filed Married filing jointly but because my AGI is too high, I dont qualify for things like the child tax credit amongst other things IRA contributions etcMy wife earned much less so are there any benefits to filing separately?  <response>: If your wife earned much less than you it is very likely that filing jointly results in a lower overall tax, because you get to pour some of your income into lower tax bracket space MFJ brackets are bigger than MFS brackets.Filing separately does not restore the ability to do certain things, such as child tax credit unavailable to MFS if income over 55K or IRA deduction unavailable to MFS if income over 10K. 