Bucky:
I suspected that’s what you meant. Thank you sincerely for clearing that up.
Livin’ on Tums, vitamin E and Rogaine
A couple thoughts:
Bucky, I have decried the ‘marriage penalty’ (though not with a catchy phrase) for years, at least since the tax reforms of the mid-80’s. Mind you, since my wife earned nothing (stay at home Mother), it didn’t affect us; we got the advantage of the reduction in effective tax rate resulting from having more of our income exempt than a single person. But it never made sense to me that two people who each earned money would end up paying more in taxes married than single and living together.
Second thought: You can’t make progressive income tax ‘fair’ in all ways without contortions that would make a gymnast or attorney proud. I don’t advocate a flat tax; I simply accept that the system isn’t going to treat everyone ‘equally’. 
Bucky said
Bucky, you still have not provided any support for your argument. The fact that a couple of your friends say that it is so is not proof. You can find 3 people who agree that the earth is flat. That does not change the shape of our orb.
Furthermore, it has already been suggested that the tax be equal for singles and marrieds.
If married folks pay less it may be because they have houses and kids. I would point out that single people with a house and kids pay even less than married people in the same situation. You have not shown how the tax code provides these alleged lower taxes that you keep mentioning.
And (arrrrrrgh) it does not only benefit the rich! Those who are already in the highest tax bracket will not be affected either way. They are already maxed out. The people who will benefit are those middle class married people that have been kicked into a higher bracket because their income is added together.
Now, cite some real evidence or concede the point.
The Joint Economic Committee, Oct 1997: 23 million couples pay a marriage penalty which totals $28.8 billion. 28 million couples receive a marriage bonus which totals $32.9 billion.
The Concord Coalition Issue Brief of May 19, 1999: Approximately 20 million couples pay a marriage penalty, approximatley 25 million receive a marriage bonus.
The Citizen for Tax Justice, “What Marriage Penalty?” by Robert. S McIntyre: because married couples pay in three fourths of all income tax, any efforts at redistributing the “marriage penalty” would still fall on them in about this proportion and thus all numbers about penalties for an individual family should be divided by 4.
The New Republic, June 29, 1998: 42% of couples pay some form of penalty, 51% receive a bonus. “Fixing” this is either still going to fall primarily on married couples or be put entirely on the backs of single people.
The Joint Committee on Taxation of June 22, 1999: upholds the 42%/51% split.
On the whole—married people receive a slight benefit over single people. More of them receive the benefit than the penalty and they get slightly more money than is paid out in the penalty. Is it fair that ANYONE has a penalty? I doubt it. Does a penalty exist across the board? No.
Melin–1) My friend Doug Fraleigh, BOALT graduate and married man, says that he doesn’t buy the marriage penalty arg and points out that BOALT doesn’t use grades.
2) I’m not asking you to be impressed (I hope you’re not asking the same of me). I simply cited the sources I was using at the time. Now I’m also citing the other sources.
3) How the heck should I know what deductions you get that I don’t or vice versa without filing your taxes with you? Personally, I’ve never tried filing a married person’s tax form, which is a good idea, because I’m not married.
Those who do pay a higher amount are right in that YOU pay a higher amount. To extrapolate that into claiming that all marrieds do is a hasty generalization.
Now, unless you have evidence that goes beyond personal examples showing that all of the above are made up, I guess I won’t concede my point.
P.S. Still SHOCKED that politicians might misrepresent this!
Oh, well. We can always make more killbots.
Bucky said
Varius members have demonstrated how a marriage penalty works. I have never, ever heard of a marriage bonus and can’t imagine how being put in a higher tax bracket and having your deduction decreased can result in a bonus.
Anyone care to expalain the “marriage bonus?”
I suspect that it applies to those that have children and homes to deduct.
Bucky quoted
Specious reasoning. This applies only if taxes are to remain at a constant level. This is a tax cut. Even if it is redistributed to the populace as a whole, it would make the taxation more equitable. My understanding is that they are not going to replace those tax dollars.
The marriage bounus means that some (actually the majority) of married people pay LESS money in taxes than would single people with the same income.
So YOU’VE never heard of it. If I claim that I haven’t heard of a penalty, is that proof? Check out the citations, check out the CBO, check them all out and prove their numbers wrong.
To even out the penalty that a minority of couples pay must assume one of the following:
MrZ–I again invite you to use an example beyond your own experience and refute these numbers of tax and bonus. Right now you’ve got a hasty generalization and an I/me/mine fallacy.
Bucky
Oh, well. We can always make more killbots.
No one should be ‘shocked’ that politicians of every stripe misrepresent the issues that have to do with taxation. Government cannot be separated from politics; politics is all about power; money and power are one and the same.
There is a lesson here. There was a time – within the memory of our oldest citizens – when there was no federal income tax. That tax came to be in fits and starts, and ALWAYS was presented as a ‘temporary’ measure, to fund one war or another. But once the concept took hold and the politicians realized the power they could wield through taxation, it was a done deal. Withholding of taxes from salaries came later, but again, once the politicians got a little taste of a constant cash-flow, THAT was a done deal.
Now we all get to deal with a federal tax code that runs on the fat side of 40,000 pages of text, forms, schedules, etc.
I don’t know why fortune smiles on some and lets the rest go free…
T
Bucky, several posters have shown, using the tax tables, why married people pay more. In looking at the tax table, it is clear that married people get put into a higher tax bracket.
You asserted that there is a tax bonus, then quoted some sources that say, yes, there is a tax bonus. But you haven’t shown an example of what it is. I am not suggesting that because I have not heard of it that it doesn’t exist. But you have to back it up. If I say that unicorns exist, it is up to me to prove…not up to those who disagree to prove my point for me.
I am arguing that there is a penalty. I do not have to prove your argument for you by trying to look up something that I do not even believe exists. You still haven’t shown why some marrieds pay less.
You said
If 3/4 of the tax is paid by married people, the only way that an even spread would result in the same tax is if married couples equal 3/4 of the tax paying public in number.
Say there are ten people who pay taxes. and total taxes equat $1000. One person pays $750 and the rest pay the $250. If taxes are redistributed evenly, the tax goes down for the guy paying $750. See, the proportion paid is not equal to the number of people actually paying. The argument is specious.
Ok bucky, I looked up some of your sources. The so-called “marriage bonus” comes down to this: If you have a single income household and are married you will pay less tax than if you were single and made the same amount of money. Why? because you have added an extra dependant.
That is like saying there is a “child bonus” because you can take a deduction for each child.
I guess when you think about it, making 50% less money results in a “bonus”. you would certainly pay less taxes.
The bottom line is how you figure out what is a bonus or penalty. If you take a couple earning x and compare it to a sinlge person earning x, then the married folks are paying less. But they also have two people surviving off of one person’s income.
If you take person X and compare what he would make before and after marriage to a person making the same amouunt of money, the couple will always pay more in taxes.
YOu only get the so called “bonus” if one spouse doesn’t work (or makes very little).
I would note that the articles I read on this all framed the debate it terms of the republicans and were clearly against any kind of tax cut. IMHO, there was a strong liberal bias.
Let me try to explain that once again. IF you take two folks making $40,000 each and compare the taxes they pay before and after they get married, they will be paying more when married.
If you take one person who makes $80,000 who marries someone who makes nothing, The person making $80,000 will pay less taxes because he now has a dependant.
The first situation is called a marriage penalty, the second is called a marriage bonus.
In the first case, both people pay more.
In the second case one pays more and one pays less.
Think about it. If you take someone who is earning nothing and then stick them in an $80,000/year household, they go from paying nothing to paying 1/2 of the tax on $80K. There is only a bonus for one member of the couple.
So the marriage bonus is a smokescreen. The marriage penalty is real.
Jeez Loweeze, people, figure it out! Tax rates are, or should be, based on ability to pay. A couple with two incomes is able to split the cost of housing and other expenses whereas single wage-earner households have to make it on one paycheck. It’s the old saying, two can live as cheaply as one (almost). With all that extra money, DINKS can afford to pay more in taxes. Raising children is expensive–hence the redoubled per-child tax credt–but so is making mortgage payments as a single. Not all singles are shacking up, though the politicians seem to think they are. Those who really are should be made to pay the same tax rates as married couples. Either that or, if the marriage penalty is abolished, the per-child credit should be as well. In that case the tax rates would be based strictly on income levels and ignore household expenses. Instead, married couples with children are getting double, triple, quadruple helpings of tax relief and singles get squat, hence a * single penalty*.
sqweels, if taxation should be based on ability to pay, then shouldn’t people who have (costly) children be given a break to account for the increased expense of raising children?
There is a single penalty in the cost of living, perhaps, but there is a tax advantage to being single.
I wont argue that living with someone saves money, but that does not necesarily mean that people who are living together are married. The best scenario, as it stands, is to live together but not get married. Which is pretty crappy.
You love you girlfriend and want to get married but you have to pay an extra grand or so for the privilege.
Wel, virtually all of the info out there on the penalty is GOP or more conservative than that (and those in favor of the flat tax)–seems to me that the “bias” issue is a wash.
The congressional data that I used talks about how there was an almost universal marriage bonus until 1969. That is that married people paid less than single people who made the same money. Changes in the tax code resulted in the marriage bonus only existing for 51% and a penalty for 42%. They use those terms, “bonus” and “penalty” in the reports. I think that if you accept numbers on one you kind of have to for the other. This has nothing to do with houses, kids, etc.
Over half of married couples pay less in taxes than they would if they were single. Under half pay more. There are more people who receive a marriage bonus, they individually receive more money than they penalized are penalized, and the total amount is in favor of the bonus. In any way you examine the numbers, there is a slight leaning towards a bonus.
That doesn’t mean that we might not want to change the tax codes. But there is no real benefit to society to changing it in favor of marrieds without kids. MrZ is right that my math was somewhat skewed, but it’s not a baby/bathwater deal. To eliminate the “penalty” for all would put a penalty on some of those who now have the married bonus and certainly penalize single people.
Single people without kids already pay for goods and services we don’t use–I’m in favor of that, personally, but it doesn’t directly benefit me to help kids. We pay more in opportunity costs in benefits, because I get to help pay for the insurance and such for your spouse, regardless of whether or not you have kids. We pay more in taxes than 51% of all married people at the same level of income (the same as 6%, less than 42%).
Individual examples aren’t proof. They are hasty generalizations. Show me why the congressional date is wrong if you want to persuade me and I’ll join the fray against the marriage penalty.
Until then, I’ll remain single, wish for good things for my married friends, but wish that they wouldn’t seem to expect everything to go their way.
Bucky
Oh, well. We can always make more killbots.
Read this again, and tell me if you really think it makes any sense at all.
Glad you brought it up Cooper.
The marriage bonus argument goes like this:
In a single income household, a married person making (for example) $80,000 pays less tax than they would if they were single. Since they are paying less tax, they are receiving a bonus for being married.
This is true, but it obfuscates the issue by only looking at one half of the married couple.
Take the married couples as a single unit, which for tax purposes it is. Lets divide any tax burden equally between the spouses. THe person making nothing is paying 1/2 of the tax on the $80,000. They are paying more tax than they would if they simply earned nothing.
Another way to lok at it: If you take two people earning $40k and marry them, they are paying the same amount of tax post marriage as a married couple where only one spouse earns $80,000 does. The tax bonus people are focusing on the fact that the wage earner in the one income household is paying less than he was when single.
But both households are paying the same amount in taxes. In the issue of the penalty they are taking into account the pre-marriage taxes paid by both people. In the case of the “bonus” they are only taking into account the tax impact on one of the people.
C3 showed a real life example of how a couple getting married pays more tax. Bucky, you still have not given an example of a couple that pays less after marriage. I have gone to the trouble to define your argument for you. Please support it with something tangible.
I have proven that the bonus is not a bonus but an example of creative math and selective evidence. I would like to see an example of the bonus such as others have provided for the penalty.
In my mind what the bonus folks are saying is : 2+2<4+0.
::Rolling eyes::
2 wage earners who marry pay more after the marriage than they paid in combined seperate taxes before the marriage.
2 people who marry and only one of them earns wages will pay less taxes than they paid before they were married.
The net result is likely close to a wash (actually, if Bucky’s figures are correct, the government still gets a net gain on the situation).
For the two-wage earner family, it isn’t good public policy to give them a dis-incentive to get married. Marriage should be without financial impediment, otherwise they will simply stay ‘single’. Doesn’t take much thought to realize THAT doesn’t help things.
For the one-wage earner family, there is an unfair result of the wage-earner having obtained a spouse: the reduction of wages. In this case, the couple could have stayed single, but they would have been worse off financially.
The best result would be a tax code that doesn’t contain dis-incentives for marriage, but doesn’t reward it substantially, either. Best of luck doing that with anything other than a ‘flat-rate’ tax.
DS said
What, pray tell is the real difference in taxes between two married folks making $0k each and two married folks where one makes $80k?
You are rolling your eyes, I assume because of the tortured logic it takes to explain the difference. I would argue that the “bonus” logic is equally tortures. Both couples make $80K, Both pay the same tax, but one is better off and one is worse because of the distribution of the wealth between the two married couples?
Roll your eyes all you want. assuming that one person was earning nothing before the marriage, that person will now be responsible for paying some taxes. If you don’t agree, see what happens if the wage earners fails to pay taxes and hops a plane to Belize.
Furthermore, if that person was indeed making nothing before the marriage, they are also giving up the EIC, social benefits, welfare, food stamps and a host of other benefits that you get from being poor. So that person is losing out.
In the real world it is more likely that two people will get married, one makes a lot less than the other and stops working to raise kids. As you correctly pointed out, DS, they only get the tax break by removing one income, which is not much of a bonus. Even if you don’t buy my scenario, the so called bonus results from a net decrease in income. Some bonus.
$30 billion is not much in the grand scheme of things.
The bottom line, is that if I make $80,000, and get married and my wife doesn’t work, I will pay less taxes on that $80,000 income than before I was married.
It doesn’t matter if you wish to pretend we are now paying each paying half the taxes, it is still less taxes total.
Sure Cooper. But if I’m making $90,000, and my boyfriend is making $45,000, we will pay less taxes as a total before the wedding than we will after the wedding.
Why?
-Melin
Guess what. Married DINKs each have their own insurance and pay more than singles do for those unused benefits you mentioned above. What possible rationale can there be for charging employed, childless married people more than employed, childless cohabitating people?
Pointing out that 51% of married couples get a bonus does not make it acceptable to penalize the other half. That’s like charging Easterners more federal tax than Westerners and claiming it all averages out in the end.
Marriage status should have no bearing whatsoever on taxes. Deductions for dependents are fine, but tax rates should remain the same.