I pay quite a bit more taxes than someone who earns about the same wage as I do, but supports another adult and two kids. Given that this family uses far more tax-paid services than I do, is this fair?
Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t mind helping the family. Not a bit. I just wonder how this unfair situation came to be. I get nothing in return from the beneficiary of my higher tax burden, not even gratitude.
Because singles are in the minority, and can’t defend themselves? 
Me, I don’t think it’s fair, but I don’t really mind the unequal treatment.
No Beamer for me, eh.
Peace,
mangeorge, an old dude who always votes for school bonds, etc.
You do get something. Someone had better be having children, or who will be providing you medical care in your old age? Or picking up your garbage for that matter? I don’t have children either, and have no intention to do so. I don’t resent the higher taxes because I consider myself part of a larger society. To me, it’s only one of the costs of living in that society.
I think it’s because, in a long-range and extremely theoretical view, you’re not contributing anything to our society after your death, because you’ve chosen to be childless. That’s cool, but, y’know, the children are our future and all that. While we don’t want *too *much population growth, we don’t want negative population growth either, so it makes sense to give financial breaks to people who are providing our future labor force, I guess.
In a more here and now and practical way, children are expensive little buggers. They go through clothes more quickly than adults because they’re growing, they need all sorts of nickle-and-dime-you-to-death school expenses, and have you seen what a teenaged boy can eat? All the way down to utilities: Four showers a day instead of one, electricity on in three or four rooms instead of one, more food takes more gas or electricity to cook, etc. Even looking at the same income bracket, a family has much higher expenses than a single person. Tax breaks help offset that.
My Wife and I are dual income no kids. DINKS. I agree to a point and also vote for school bonds and such.
The value we get out of it IMHO, is a possible better future by have better educated children.
OTOH, it makes me agree that people have kids with out being able to properly support them.
I am in my old age, sorta. I’m 63. And I have two daughters and three grandkids. I love kids. Like I said, I don’t mind. I just wish those dang kids didn’t eat so much. I even believe that, all things considered, a stay-at-home parent is a benefit for kids.
But I would like a M5 as my last car. 
Let them eat cake!
Oh, good plan! That went over so well last time! 
Some would say that’s exactly what we need. The revolution, not the cake. :dubious:
But I’m not a Libertarian.
Just kidding, guys. 
Whether or not you have children, you were once a child. Therefore we all had our turn to be beneficiaries of tax deductions for children.
Pretty much - yes.
IIRC, about 80% of the population will at one time be married. And I’m guessing that many who aren’t think that one day they will be - so, it comes across as “fair” to them even when it really isn’t.
As to the “kids are expensive” argument, so are trips to Europe. But there’s no tax break for my chosen expenses. At the end of the day, I do believe it’s a society and one that I’m lucky and proud to be part of, and I do vote for schools and parks and do agree with Biden’s sentiment that paying taxes is patriotic (though I wish he had worded it better). Still, there are moments where I’d like some acknowledgement that I’m paying for more and consuming fewer government services than a household of two much less a household of four with the same household income.
No, it’s not fair but it’s never going to change. People with families usually get more in benefits from your employer, too. The cost of the employer’s contribution toward your healthcare will be smaller than the person with the family. Also not fair, but won’t be changing.
Having said that, I understand the reasons why and just accept it. As someone who never, ever wants children it is just something that I understand to be the way it is. Like others have mentioned, it’s for the “good” of society.
Still, this:
bugs me. I don’t mean to single you out WhyNot but this excuse always makes me laugh. Yes, they are expensive. Expensive choices you made. The lovely Hermès bag I have my eye on is expensive too, but the government doesn’t see its way fit to assist me with it. Yes, I am comparing children to a bag. For me, it’s hardly a contest! For others, they choose the opposite.
It’s always a good time to listen to co-workers tell me how expensive it is to raise their children only to regale me with news of their upcoming vacation after tax season. Maybe not a vacation but the purchase of a new flat screen or surround sound or whatever else their tax refund affords them. I always want to smile and say “You’re welcome.”
Despite my little mini-rant, I want to say again: I do understand what I am paying for is the “future” of our communities. I guess I’m taking my extra taxes out in bitching a little in this thread.
Sometimes, SWB, I do say “you’re welcome”. Sometimes it pisses them off.
Can’t figure out why.
As a middle income earner in Canada I’ve never been able to take advantage of any tax breaks offered to families. The previous child allowance program which paid families a monthly benefit was gone by the time I had kids, and the new tax benefit for kids under 6 (I think) doesn’t apply since my kids are older than that now.
We can’t deduct mortgage interest and really there’s nothing you can do apart from diverting money into an RRSP account to save taxes here. I pay the same with kids or without kids.
Tax refund? I’ve had one in the last, ohh… 23 years.
Okay, but some of you had better be rearing children who are going to be my doctors some day. Otherwise, the deal’s off.
When I was younger it bothered me, but now I think it’s a good thing. No one could pay me enough to have kids, so I don’t mind paying more in taxes so someone who took that bullet for me gets some extra back. And I don’t even mind the significant protion of my property taxes going to pay for schools - keeps the critters off the streets most of the year. Besides, with all the kids and grandkids my useless sibs whelped who are on or going to be on food stamps and welfare, I figure its a sort of duty to help offest some of the cost, assuming I don’t have to take any of the blame.
Taxes are the price paid as an entrance fee / membership fee to earn income in the country you do business in. Singles pay more, because maintaining a system for replacing the workforce as it expires is better for the club’s (country’s) continued existance long term.
If the fees to do business in one country aren’t for you, a free agent can do the research on comparative employment and costs elsewhere, do a cost-benefit-analysis, and if its more profitable for the individual, emigrate.
Yes, I’m advocating a system that allows you to cross country lines to get your best price on taxes…
Right, but, again, your Hermes bag doesn’t benefit any of the rest of us, even theoretically, someday. Other people do.
My son wants to design and build homes and medical centers, using recycled and reclaimed materials. Is that worthy enough?
But there’s also your mechanic or your diaper-changer-in-the-nursing-home or your tax accountant or the guy who helps carry your groceries to the car when your arthritis is flaring up or the girl who makes your coffee when you’re running late for work or your garbage man. It’s not just the obviously glamorous job holders that you do and will benefit from. Someone fed, clothed and paid for schooling for every one of those helpful people as they were growing up. Someone also paid for you, and got those same tax benefits.
so, mangeorge, didn’t you have the benefit of the tax deduction when your two daughters were growing up? did you think at the time that you were getting an unfair advantage?
more broadly, it’s the nature of a complex tax system that there are a lot of deductions to encourage things that the government are important to society. not everyone will be able to claim all the different deductions. why is this one any different? it is one that most people will be able to claim at some point in their lives.
Sure I had that advantage, and I actually did wonder at the fairness of it. I didn’t refuse it. We could have got along without the deduction, as I’m sure a lot of parents could, but we claimed it anyway. Part of it made for much nicer vacations. For the kids, of course.
I think the biggest plus was free public schools. That’s a direct benefit to the children.
Don’t think of it as a benefit that the parent is getting. Think of it as income support that the kids are getting by virtue of being your fellow humans and citizens of your country. I presume, for instance, that the U.S. does have some sort of welfare payment to people unable to earn income of their own due to disability? Well, kids are just people who are unable to earn income due to the disability of being extremely short, inexperienced and untrained in anything.
They’ll get over it.