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From: stj@calmasd.UUCP (Shirley Joe)
Newsgroups: net.taxes,net.singles,net.flame
Subject: Marriage penalty
Message-ID: <285@calmasd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 11-Feb-85 19:28:00 EST
Article-I.D.: calmasd.285
Posted: Mon Feb 11 19:28:00 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Feb-85 03:37:44 EST
Organization: Calma Company, San Diego, CA
Lines: 34
Xref: watmath net.taxes:646 net.singles:5841 net.flame:8317

Question:  What's the difference between big difference between SOs
living together and SOs married?
IRS:  The married ones are poorer because they get to pay more taxes.

My SO and I were married in 1984 (April 15th, as a matter of fact) after
living together for 1.5 years.  We decided in that 1.5 years, that we
loved each other and that we wanted to spend the rest of our life together
(how romantic) so we took the next logical step:  We got married.

Well, last week I sat down to do our Joint Tax Return for 1984 and to
my astonishment, I found that we owed an additional $2000 in federal
taxes.  Now, when we got married, we changed our W-4 forms to "married,
but withhold at the higher single rate" category.  At the rate the taxes
were withheld from our paychecks, it seemed to me that everything should
balance out at year's end.  Instead, I find that we must pay $2000 more in
taxes married, than we would pay if we were single (I am taking into
account the deduction for two-earner couples).

After looking at the tax tables, I figured out that married, we are at
the marginal tax rate of 38%.  If we were single, both my SO and I would
be taxed at 30%.  But because we are married, we cannot file as single.
There is a category of "married, filing separately" but that tax rate is
even higher than the married rate (I calculated that too).

It seems to me that something is terribly unfair here.  And the
incredible thing is I don't hear anybody else complaining about it.  Is
there anyone else out there that has run into the same problems?  Is
there anything we can do about it?  Any suggestions?  Should we get a
divorce?

(I should have listened to my mother.  She told us not to get married.)

Spike
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