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1 Kyle Pomerleau, Understanding the Marriage Penalty and Marriage Bonus 1 (2015)

handle is hein.taxfoundation/unmarpmb0001 and id is 1 raw text is: FOUNDATION FISCAL FACT Apr. 2015 No. 464 The Tax Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-partisan, non-profit research institution founded in 1937 to educate the public on tax policy. Based in Washington, D.C., our economic and policy analysis is guided by the principles of sound tax policy: simplicity, neutrality, transparency, and stability. @2015 Tax Foundation Distributed under Creative Commons CC-BY NC 4.0 Editor, Melodie Bowler Designer, Dan Carvajal Tax Foundation 1325 G Street, NW, Suite 950 Washington, DC 20005 202.464.6200 taxfoundation.org Understanding the Marriage Penalty and Marriage Bonus By Kyle Pomerleau' Economist Key Findings * A marriage penalty or bonus is the change in a couple's total tax bill as a result of getting married and thus filing their taxes jointly. * Marriage bonuses typically occur when two individuals with disparate incomes marry. * Marriage penalties occur when two individuals with equal incomes marry; this is true for both high- and low-income couples. * Marriage bonuses can be as high as 20 percent of a couple's income, and marriage penalties can be as high as 12 percent of a couple's income. * While research shows that marriage penalties and bonuses do not have much effect on whether a couple will marry, they do impact how much each spouse works. * It is possible to completely eliminate both marriage penalties and bonuses, but it would require a significant overhaul of the tax code that drastically changes the current distribution of income taxes paid. 1 The author worked with Nick Kasprak of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to develop the data for this report.

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