So:

My wife and I filed a joint return for 2013 for the first time. We just had a baby late in 2013 and the joint filing status gave us a boost in federal tax refund. Previously we have always filed as “married filing separately.”

My wife has $40 in student loan debt. I have none. My wife incurred this debt long before we were married and I am not a co-signer to any loan nor do we have any consolidated accounts of any kind at this time.

My wife has been unable to find work in the profession for which she incurred the student loan debt (master’s degree in school counseling). She has been unemployed for over 2 years now. Due to her zero income status she has been able to postpone making payments on her debt for most of that time.

That time is now up and they have informed her she must begin making payments.

If we had filed as “married filing separately” for 2013 she would have no income to report. But since we filed jointly our combined AGI is approx. $70k (my salary).

For 2014 and beyond we will revert to filing as “married filing separately”. So my question is: it seems like we (me) will have to make monthly payments on my wife’s loan for at least a single year (to cover our joint return status for 2013)—but once we change to separate returns—will her minimum payment revert to being based solely on her income (if she has any by that point—we plan on moving so she can find work b/c no one is hiring where we live currently).

If I could afford it I’d rather just pay off her loan entirely and be done with it. And we may do that at some point—but for now I am trying to figure out how many payments I will have to make toward her student loan debt based on our 2013 return. My guess is one year’s worth(?)

It is certainly going to pinch our available resources. My wife would go find part-time work doing something unrelated to her degree if we didn’t have a 7-month old baby (we have no relatives nearby and daycare would eat up any salary she earned in a part-time job) so the best option for us right now is for her to be a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom) and raise our daughter until we move to a location where jobs in her area of expertise are more plentiful.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer advice. If I had known about the whole joint filing thing we probably would have continued to file separately for 2013. We won’t make the same mistake again in 2014.

Yes, if your wife applies for an income-driven repayment plan, her payments will be based on your joint income as reported on your joint tax return and yes, income will need to be recertified annually so you can choose whether or not to file jointly each year.  Remember also that the baby (congrats!) increases her family size which will lower payments somewhat.  There are other repayment plans available that would be worth checking out.  I recommend she logs into studentloans.gov and use the Repayment Estimator at the bottom of the left sidebar to see whether she can get lower payments under another plan.