Ed Royce: “I rise in support of the base bill. As one of my constituents said in a town meeting last month, "Marriage is penalty…”

“I rise in support of the base bill. As one of my constituents said in a town meeting last month, "Marriage is penalty enough, we don't need the government penalizing marriage with this special marriage penalty tax." And yet the Internal Revenue Service pushes many couples, simply for being married, into a higher tax bracket, and generally this is targeted on the income of the second wage earner, typically the wife, at a much higher rate than if she were taxed only as an individual. I want to give my colleagues an example. A young woman was in my office on Friday. In terms of her own tax return, it means several thousand dollars of additional taxes if she makes the decision to get married. Now, if we go with the substitute motion, then we discriminate against those who itemize. She owns a house. As a result of the payments, those are deductible, so she itemizes. Those who make a payment toward their church or synagogue as a contribution, those are tax deductible. So we would be discriminating against those individuals. Let us treat everyone fairly. That is what the Marriage Tax Elimination Act does. It provides relief from the marriage tax penalty, a penalty that is keeping many parents from doing all they want for their children, a penalty that, frankly, is keeping many young couples from getting married because they would be pushed into that higher bracket.”