As the mid-term elections draw near, Republicans would like to change the subject to taxes. Democrats would like to convince more single people to vote. I'd like to indulge both parties by explaining why the issue of taxes is of special relevance to people who are single.
The federal tax code has been sold politically as a married person's burden. One candidate after another has pledged to free married people from the marriage penalty. But let's look more closely at this so-called marriage penalty. Compare the taxes paid by a married couple filing jointly to the taxes paid by a single person on the exact same taxable income. That's what I did when I was researching my new book, Singled Out: How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After. Here's what I found: The single person always pays more. No exceptions.
Does it seem unfair to compare the taxes paid by one person to the taxes paid by two? Then remember that the married couple does not need to have two wage-earners and they also do not have to have any children to qualify for the break. So one spouse can go to work, the other can stay home and watch TV, and the couple will still get tax breaks that are subsidized by single people.
When candidates and citizens rail against the marriage penalty, what they usually mean is this: If two people marry, their total taxes are sometimes higher than if they stayed unmarried. But even this is misleading, because more than half the time, the twosome reaps a tax bonus when they marry, not a penalty. (What's more, the comparison is only about couples - married ones and unmarried ones. It is not as if a single person could file jointly with a sibling, friend, or parent - even if the two of them vowed to care for each other as long as they lived, and actually honored that vow.)
In 2004, an op-ed in the Washington Post pointed out that a married couple with two children does not pay any income taxes at all until their income is about 2 and a half times the poverty threshold. This is as it should be - families should be able to afford basic living expenses before they start paying taxes. But so should single people. And yet, in 2004, single people were taxed even when their income was a few hundred dollars below the poverty level. Now, in 2006, they still are.
The federal income tax code is the best known of the tax issues. But in other domains of taxation, too, such as estate taxes and capital gains, it is the married people who get the breaks.
I'm single and I have no children. I have no objections to tax breaks for people who care for others who cannot care for themselves. In that category I include not just children, but anyone of any age who is disabled, seriously ill, or otherwise dependent on others. I value people who do the challenging work of caring for the needy. I'll subsidize them. I just don't want to underwrite the lifestyles of two able-bodied, fully-competent adults, simply because they are married.
There are 89.8 million Americans who are divorced, widowed, or have always been single. Not all of them agree with my positions. But all of them should show up at the polls and make their own voices heard.