Who’s on (the 1040) first? Determinants and consequences of spouses’ name order on joint returns

Opposite-sex married couples filing a joint return put the male name first 88.1% of the time in tax year 2020, down from 97.3% in 1996. With correlations being driven by indicators of who takes the lead in the couple’s taxes, the man’s name is more likely to go first the larger is the fraction of the couple’s allocable income that goes to him, the older is the couple, and when the man is the older or higher-earning spouse. However, compared to same-sex couples, the influences of the age and earnings factors on the name order of opposite-sex couples’ tax returns are limited by gender norms. We calculate that, without the constraints of gender norms, the probability of the male name going first for the returns filed by opposite-sex couples would be 27 percentage points lower. Based on state averages, such probability is strongly associated with political ideology, religiosity, and gender stereotyping attitudes of the state’s residents. Finally, tax return data suggest that the man’s name going first is associated with both riskier portfolios and more tax noncompliance.