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“Marriage Tax” Reform
Why is there a Marriage Penalty? Why should Congress renew its efforts to end the Marriage Penalty? How can we fix the Marriage Penalty in the tax code? ... Believe it or not marriage can increase your taxes and it’s hard to see any rhyme or reason why. The sad thing about it is that the principal effect of the marriage penalty has been on wives, because they generally earn less than their husbands and thus are in effect taxed at their husbands marginal tax rates. This means that wives generally receive less after-tax income on each dollar they earn than their husbands do. Each year, more and more married couples have to pay a “marriage penalty”-extra federal income that they would not pay as single adults-and each year the calls for marriage penalty relief grow in strength and popularity, both in Congress and across the nation. In 2000, Congress took action to end this unfair and malicious part of the tax code by passing the Marriage Penalty Tax Relief Act of 2000 by vote of 269-159 in the House and 61-38 in the Senate. Though, your husband, President Bill Clinton vetoed the measure, the 270-158 vote in the House to override his veto showed strong bipartisan support for eliminating the marriage penalty. ... Marriage is hard enough, why make financial strain another addition the couple’s life because there is some evidence that taxes encourage divorce, especially on the part of women who are affected most by the marriage penalty. ... The tax code should not encourage couples to, especially in the lower income brackets, to remain unmarried in order to save more money. I believe that as soon as possible Congress should build on the proposals in the Act to: One, end the marriage penalty for joint filers who use the standard deduction by increasing the deduction to twice that available to single filers. Two, end the marriage penalty in the tax tables by expanding the size of the joint filer marginal tax brackets to that of single working adults. And three, end the marriage in figuring the earned income tax credit (EITC) by expanding the income phase out range to twice that of single EITC recipients.
Approximate Word count = 1833
Approximate Pages = 7.3
(250 words per page double spaced)
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