Talk:Marriage penalty

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Does "marriage penalty" mean the couple must pay higher taxes than two unrelated people with the same income, etc.? Or simply that it can cost more to file together? --Uncle Ed 18:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Trouble with second paragraph, I'm not sure the proper correction. It currently says "The source of this increase in taxes has its roots in the progressive tax-rate structure in income-tax laws, that is, a higher income pays a higher rate of tax. In such a context income averaging is advantageous to the taxpayer. E.g. two persons, one making $80,000 and the other making $20,000 in a particular year, will pay a larger combined tax than they would if both had an income of $50,000 in the same year." If it is advantageous to average, wouldn't that mean they would pay a smaller combined tax? It seems so, but when I went to fix it I got confused. Sigh. GRBerry 23:01, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need to add 'head of household' into the discussion

I didn't see anything in the article that addressed how filing as head of household affects taxation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael.Urban (talk • contribs) 17:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The article needs to include information on the huge marriage penalty incurred when one or more spouses is collecting Social Security. For singles Social Security starts becoming taxable when half of the Social Security received and all other income exceeds $25,000. For married couples this amount is $32,000. This creates an $18,000 penalty for some married couples as compared to two single people with the same income.

Most people do not realize that when these income levels are exceeded that every additional dollar of income after that creates a $1.85 of taxable income. The taxabality of Social Security was implemented in 1992 by the Clinton administration with VP Al Gore casting the tie breaking vote in the Senate.

In addition the $25,000 and $32,000 thresholds are not indexed for inflation and remain fixed at the same amounts set in 1992. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.130.69.90 (talk) 14:55, 17 February 2008 (UTC)