On the recordApril 1, 1998
What this amendment says is very simple, that it is the sense of the Senate that eliminating the marriage penalty tax should be one of the highest priorities for tax relief this year. The Congressional Budget Office has reported that in 1996, 21 million American couples paid an average of $1,400 more in income tax simply because they were married. The marriage penalty, as it is sometimes called, comes about as a result of the way the Tax Code is written. It needs to be rewritten so that couples who chose to marry do not get a hefty tax bill for choosing to make that decision. We should be encouraging couples to marry, not handing them a $1,400 tax bill. I introduced this legislation along with Senator Hutchison to correct this problem.
Source
govinfo.gov
