Connie Mack: “I hope that our colleagues across the aisle will not prevent us from reducing the marriage penalties in the tax code.…”

“I hope that our colleagues across the aisle will not prevent us from reducing the marriage penalties in the tax code. This bill will provide married couples the relief that President Clinton denied them last year with his veto of the Taxpayer Refund and Relief Act of 1999. President Clinton's action last year increased taxes by close to $800 billion and imposed a marriage penalty on middle class American families. There is no place in the tax code for marriage penalties. Marriage penalties are caused by tax laws that treat joint filers relatively worse than single filers with half the income. It has of late become common practice to use the tax code for purposes of social engineering, discouraging some actions with the stick of tax penalties and encouraging others with the carrot of tax preferences. But there is no legitimate policy reason for punishing taxpayers with higher taxes just because they happen to be married. The marriage penalties in the tax code undermine the family, the institution that is the foundation of our society. I view this bill as just a start. Our tax code will not truly be family-friendly until every single marriage penalty is rooted out and eliminated, so that married couples with twice the income of single individuals are taxed at the same rates, and are eligible for the same tax preferences--including deductions, exemptions, use of IRAs and other savings vehicles--as those single filers.”