Ed Royce: “But there is one aspect of that Tax Code that in my view is the most unfair of all, and that is the marriage penalty.…”

“But there is one aspect of that Tax Code that in my view is the most unfair of all, and that is the marriage penalty. Under the current Tax Code, married couples usually pay more Federal taxes than single taxpayers, everyone knows this. We can ask any recently married couple about the shock that they received when they got their first tax bill. And it is wrong. It is wrong that the IRS charges a family more based on their marital status than they would when two single people are individually paying those taxes. The marriage penalty is essentially a tax on working wives, because the joint filing system compels married couples to identify a primary earner and a secondary earner and usually the wife falls into this latter category. This works out to be a tax on working women who become married. And therefore from an accountant's point of view, the wife's first dollar of income is taxed at the point where her husband's income has left her. And if the husband is making more money than the wife, then the couple may even conclude that it is not worth it for the wife to earn income.”