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Regarding the social security benefits...in actuality married people in the U.S. pay what's euphemistically called the Marriage Tax, because the rules as codifi

by madair 16y ago

Regarding the social security benefits...in actuality married people in the U.S. pay what's euphemistically called the Marriage Tax, because the rules as codified actually require married people to pay more than if they filed separately. Regarding the rest of your arguments, I suppose they work assuming an extremely weak social contract. Or at least, in my opinion it would require a very weak one. It's hard question to test in relation to marriage since marriage is a legally sanctioned relationship in all countries, but i am most certainly not well read on this topic.

kenjackson 16y ago
That's a good point, regarding SS. See: http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/issuepapers/ip2003-01.html http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/issuepapers/ip2003-01.html
yummyfajitas 16y ago
That's true for some couples, but not all by any means. It also completely ignores the marriage subsidies. According to the CBO, 51% of married couples received a marriage bonus, and only 42% paid a marriage tax. In total, $32.9B was paid in marriage bonuses, and $28.8B was paid in marriage penalties. Data is from 1993, sorry, a quick google search couldn't find anything better. http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=7&type=0 http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=7&type=0 Note that in 2004, Bush eliminated the marriage penalty for everyone besides the rich, so I expect the numbers are more skewed now.
tzs 16y ago
In the case he's talking about, where you have a working spouse and a non-working spouse, the couple likely pays considerably less in taxes than would a single person with the same income. For any given income, a couple filing jointly with that total income pays less than a single person with that income, because the joint tax tables are lower than the single tax tables at any given income level. The so-called marriage tax is simply an artifact of the fact that we have a progressive rate structure, so that if both spouses work, their combined income is in a higher marginal bracket, which in the case where both have full time jobs can be enough to overcome the tax break they get from filing jointly.

by madair 16y ago

kenjackson 16y ago

That's a good point, regarding SS. See: http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/issuepapers/ip2003-01.html http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/issuepapers/ip2003-01.html

yummyfajitas 16y ago

That's true for some couples, but not all by any means. It also completely ignores the marriage subsidies. According to the CBO, 51% of married couples received a marriage bonus, and only 42% paid a marriage tax. In total, $32.9B was paid in marriage bonuses, and $28.8B was paid in marriage penalties. Data is from 1993, sorry, a quick google search couldn't find anything better. http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=7&type=0 http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=7&type=0 Note that in 2004, Bush eliminated the marriage penalty for everyone besides the rich, so I expect the numbers are more skewed now.

tzs 16y ago

In the case he's talking about, where you have a working spouse and a non-working spouse, the couple likely pays considerably less in taxes than would a single person with the same income. For any given income, a couple filing jointly with that total income pays less than a single person with that income, because the joint tax tables are lower than the single tax tables at any given income level. The so-called marriage tax is simply an artifact of the fact that we have a progressive rate structure, so that if both spouses work, their combined income is in a higher marginal bracket, which in the case where both have full time jobs can be enough to overcome the tax break they get from filing jointly.