Income Tax Laws Punish Marriage and Reward Those Staying Single
Posted: Sunday, August 10, 2008
by Jeff Downing
Would you get married if you knew that it would cost you about $5,000 every year for the rest of your life? The answer to this question would probably depend on several factors, including how important that amount of money is to you. What if it represented 14% of your annual income? If you are willing to read the following article, I will show you how many Americans are penalized significantly, for simply saying "I do," and why many couples are choosing to live outside of matrimony. Do not think that the penalties are confined to the examples given herein, or that the most your marriage can cost you is an extra $5,000 a year. It is possible, under the right circumstances, that your wedding will end up generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional taxes, during your lifetime.
In addition, their "standard deduction" is a combined $15,700 instead of the $10,700 offered to wedded couples, allowing them to completely escape tax on an additional $5,000 of income. Other benefits extend to the calculation of child care credits etc. etc.
Tax law is not the only enemy to marriage, there are all kinds of benefits to remaining single. In my state, California, welfare and "aid for families with dependent children" are not reduced because of the income of an additional adult living in the home, no matter what that person makes. In other words, if they get married, they will have their monthly checks reduced or cancelled, but if they remain unmarried they can continue to collect money for years.
It does not take a genius to understand why so many people never get married, and it is very apparent that every member of our society is paying a price for this insanity. As difficult as it is for "traditional families" to remain together, it is much harder for those that have never made that commitment at all. I am appalled that my government has created a system that punishes people for "walking down the isle" or visiting the justice of the peace. I blame "them" for helping to create a world where it is now a rarity for a child to grow up in a home with both their mother and their father.
This Article has been viewed 343 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)WOW... great article, Jeff. You would think that they should give married couples tax incentives rather than tax penalties. Good to see your article here. Write on!I am so knew to this that I never even thought about responding to your comment. Thank you for your encouragement.
Hi Jeff! I never knew of these taxes being put on married couples. Thank you for the info and good article. I am glad to see both you and your wife on SW. Keep them coming. Now, see you both at church. lolRealizing your high IQ and intelectual abilities, your response was very much appreciated.
HI Jeff,Great article. Something is definetly wrong with our government. I can only pray that one day they will change this gross error in the tax laws. But, I'm not going to hold my breath..It is nice when one's wife is impressed. Thank you for being you.
Yes now you got the idea. How best do you destroy the family, you destroy the culture and you make it difficult to survive in a normal marraige relatioonship unless oyou are fortunate enough to have. If you do,well we'll come and take it from you. Hey just an opinion, good job.Robert, I thank you for taking the time to respond to the article I wrote. Based on your "score" you have been doing this for some time. I would very much appreciate it, if you could tell me what I could do to improve.Your actually wrote very well and I guess while I meant to score higher I hit the middle and pressed enter before I could change it . Sorry. You did fine and I enjoyed your article.
How can you do better? Keep writing! Titles are important. Scores go up when you write an article that receives a lot of searches (Control Panel) and comments. You also need to give the articles time to "filter" through the web. Keep up the good work, Jeff. You are awesome!Thanks guy in more ways than I can express.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.