Quote:
Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Where's fringey to explain all this? Or has all the tax talk whipped her into such an orgasmic frenzy that she can't post?
Anyway, there are two reasons for the marriage penalty. First is the standard deduction. Until recently (last year?), the standard deduction for a married couple was less than double the deduction for a single. Obviously that penalizes you for being married. Second is the marginal rates, which are higher for higher income, which is Sidd's point. So, until recently, if your spouse worked enough to take the full benefit of the standard deduction, you would be penalized for that reason alone for being married. That's gone now; but there's still the marginal penalty. So I don't know who BRC's friends are, but one of them must be making real shit pay to benefit from being married.
|
I was not and am not in an orgasmic frenzy. I was busy, and now I am just too fucking disgusted by the level of ignorance to even type.
OK, not really. If there is a big income disparity, there is an ADVANTAGE to being married (unless the higher earner is still in the lowest tax bracket), IMHO. Let's say I and my next-office-door neighbor are the same class year and therefore have the same salary. I am single, and she is married with a husband who has no income. She will pay considerably less in taxes than I will, because their taxes are computed using the married tax tables and mine are computed using the single tax tables, and the brackets are wider for the married people.
If each spouse in a married couple earns exactly half of what I earn, they will pay (in total) less than I do in taxes because of the wider brackets.
If there are two married people each earning as much as I do, they each will pay more than I do in taxes because the brackets for married people are not twice as big as the brackets for single people (except for the bottom bracket).
And yesterday, people on PB were doing so well with the AMT. This is a huge disappointment to me. I may have to go on hiatus.
