Jack Kingston: “I wanted to continue this discussion on taxes and talk about another tax that has been proposed to be alleviated by the…”

“I wanted to continue this discussion on taxes and talk about another tax that has been proposed to be alleviated by the Republican tax relief plan. That is the marriage tax penalty. If a young couple today gets married, they pay more taxes together married than they would if they lived with each other. I will walk through an example. If you have a young woman who is making $20,000 and a young man who is making $20,000 a year, roughly they each pay about $4,000 in taxes. So their combined income, their combined tax liability, is $8,000. That is living together. They put on one of these little wedding bands here and get their relationship blessed by the Lord, and then that tax burden comes at a rate based on not $20,000 in income but $40,000 in income, and their total tax liability jumps from $8,000 to about $12,000 because they are now in a higher tax bracket. Mr. Speaker, what sense is behind that? What is wrong with trying to correct that? It not only applies to young people, but senior citizens. Here we are, we have a society that is condoning such an absurd, ridiculous tax policy. If society believes in the institution of marriage, then we need to address the marriage tax penalty, which is exactly what the Republican Party in their tax relief plan has done.”