Marriage penalty

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Marriage penalty

A tax that has the effect of penalizing a married couple because they pay more tax on a joint tax return than they would if they file tax returns individually.

Marriage Penalty

The higher tax rate that some married couples pay when they file jointly for their income taxes. Married couples filing jointly have different tax brackets than single persons; this can work to the advantage of couples with highly disparate income and single income households; however, it can work to the disadvantage of couples with roughly the same income. One refers to this as the marriage penalty. Some married couples file as single person to avoid the marriage penalty.

References in periodicals archive ?

socially available option, but that marriage penalties most certainly

The collision of student loan debt and joint marital taxation

Existing research primarily relies on hypothetical situations to document EITC marriage penalties, with little empirical work exploring penalties based on real-life situations.

The earned income tax credit and marriage penalties: Does a childless worker expansion make them worse?

Instead, the current regime would in fact exacerbate marriage penalties and marriage bonuses.

Taxing polygamy

especially, might face larger marriage penalties in 2013 than they had in 2010.

Assessing the marriage penalty in 2013: negative incentives remain in place for high-income couples

Observers note that some couples might prefer to retain state protections respecting community property (tenancy by the entirety), healthcare provisions and insurance benefits, while circumventing marriage penalties under federal tax law.

Surveying the post-DOMA landscape

Also marriage penalties, marriage bonuses, passive investment rules, divorce property settlements and preferential treatment of donations to charitable organizations of securities and cash versus other assets--all are discriminatory, he says.

Double Take: Unequal Taxation of Equals

63-68); greatly reduce marriage penalties by giving married taxpayers a tax rate schedule with brackets twice as wide as those applicable to single taxpayers and by giving married taxpayers a "family credit" twice as large as a single person's credit (p.

Simple, Fair, and Pro-Growth: Proposals to Fix America's Tax System

To illustrate marriage penalties and bonuses more precisely, consider the following hypothetical couples.

Taxing the "family" in the individual income tax

Harry Grubert of OTA and Rosanne Altshuler of JCT used data from the Controlled Foreign Corporation study in "The Location of Multinational Corporation Income: New Developments and Implications for Policy." Peter Brady of OTA and Paul Smith of the Federal Reserve used the 1987-forward Individual Income Tax Panel in "Receipt of Capital Income and the Effect of Recent Savings Proposals." Janet Holtzblatt and Emily Lin of OTA compared estimates using individual cross-section and panel data in "Marriage Penalties and Bonuses: A Longer Term Perspective." Robert Strauss, of Carnegie-Mellon University and Miguel Gouveia of the Catholic University of Portugal used data from the 1040 public-use file to study medical expenses.

SOI staff participate in NTA's 97th annual conference on taxation

They calculate marriage penalties and reductions in marriage bonuses using alternative approaches and assumptions, with the Treasury Department's micro-simulation model.

Making Work Pay: The Earned Income Tax Credit and Its Impact on American Families