John and Cindy McCain: Married Filing Separately

Today, I read this article about John McCain's wife, Cindy, not releasing her tax return.

It turns out that, while both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama filed joint returns with their spouses, the McCains filed separately.

In America, a married couple can either file a joint tax return, or else file separate returns.

I always wondered why a couple would decide to choose a status of "married, filing separately".   As this Quicken article points out, there are a lot of disadvantages for filing separately from your spouse.

In the McCain's case, it looks they have kept their finances separately all their lives because Cindy McCain is much richer than her husband.

In fact, while he had income of $405,409 in 2007, she is an heiress to a $100 million fortune.  In fact, the article mentions that he signed a prenuptial agreement when they got married.