I had heard about the “marriage penalty” years ago, but sort of (naively) assumed it had nothing to do with me. I just read about it again, and the article provided this link, where you can see if you’re affected by the marriage penalty. http://taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/marriagepenaltycalculator.cfm
And we so are!!! The more equal your two incomes are, greater the chance of a penalty. D and I make almost the same amount. Together we make $87,800. If one of us made that much, and the other stayed home, we’d pay almost $1300 less in taxes. That is a lot of money!
As a side note - this was designed as a marriage bonus, and did function that way back when there was only one wage-earner per household. It still is a bonus for those families where only one spouse is working. So it’s not really the “marriage penalty.” It’s really the “two working spouses” penalty. (According to the article I read, that is 57% of married people).
It’s a moot point, though, because despite our work experience and master’s degrees, we’re both in careers where neither one of us can make $80k. So there you go. We both work, and we both make almost the same amount.
The "Marriage Penalty"
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