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From: jpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA (John Purbrick)
Newsgroups: net.taxes,net.singles,net.flame
Subject: Re: Marriage penalty
Message-ID: <2297@mit-hermes.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 13-Feb-85 12:41:31 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-herm.2297
Posted: Wed Feb 13 12:41:31 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Feb-85 05:24:59 EST
References: <285@calmasd.UUCP>
Organization: The MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 31
Xref: watmath net.taxes:668 net.singles:5879 net.flame:8371

> Question:  What's the difference between big difference between SOs
> living together and SOs married?
> IRS:  The married ones are poorer because they get to pay more taxes.

	The marriage tax is based on the premise that
we all live as working-husband-and-housewife couples. The rationale is that
husbands could avoid paying tax at higher rates by diverting half their income
to their wives, so the two would each pay at a lower rate. Don't expect that 
the current govt. will do anything to alter this basic assumption! As you have
found out, the system is monstrously unjust if both members of a couple have
genuine income of their own. The fact of marriage causes a penalty, but what
you "should" be doing involves the husband taking the wife as a deduction--
in other words, the rest of us would subsidize the domestic services that she
(presumably) provides. Note also that housewives, as widows, can draw Social
Security based on their husbands' contributions, regardless of whether they
ever paid S.S. taxes themselves (actually the law is sex-blind, but not 
marital-status blind).

	The one bright spot is "Deduction for earned income when both spouses
work"; it allows you to deduct 10% (I think) of the lower-paid spouse's salary
from your joint income, but you will undoubtedly end up losing versus being
single.

	The couple who got divorced each year ended up losing their case; there
is a law that any transaction clearly intended primarily to reduce taxes is 
necessarily invalid.

			John Purbrick
			decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!mit-hermes!jpexg
			jpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA