Planning Beginner: Financial Aspects of Getting Married

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1.
For those who marry, one legal consideration is to _______.
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Update their wills. Updating a will (or a trust or some other estate planning document) as a result of marriage requires legal documentation. Of course, you may also want to go on a honeymoon and/or start a new job, but there's not legal paperwork involved for that.
2.
If you are married and you die with a retirement plan that still has funds in it, your spouse typically receives those funds.
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True. Your spouse is first in line to receive them, unless you have specified otherwise with your spouse's consent.
3.
Unmarried couples are not legally entitled to equitable division of property if they break up. An exception to this is if they _______.
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Have created a contract just for that purpose. Having drawn up a contract for equitable division of property can be legally binding.
4.
If you are married and your spouse gives you a gift, how much of that gift is subject to the gift tax?
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None of it. By federal law, gifts given to a spouse are exempt from gift taxes.
5.
The "marriage penalty" refers to _______.
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Filing taxes jointly and ending up in a higher tax bracket. This happened in the past because of the mismatch of tax brackets, but the 2018 tax law changed them such that the penalty occurs only in the two top brackets (most taxpayers are not in these brackets).