Here is a visualization of the tax policy (married vs not) in the US system: http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/marriage_penalties_char

Here is a visualization of the tax policy (married vs not) in the US system: http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/marriage_penalties_chart.png http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/... If the German policy just lets you use the mean it sounds like it would be free of the effect of creating a penalty for marriage for equal incomes that the US has.