Policymakers have directed much effort towards reducing or eliminating the so-called "marriage penalty" present in the U.S. individual income tax. However, because the marriage penalty is frequently misunderstood, many suggested remedies do little to reduce the penalty, and in some cases even...

Uses household data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to calculate the real value of the so-called "marriage tax" or "marriage subsidy" in the federal individual income tax over the period 1967- to 1994. Discusses different ways the marriage tax can be calculated and discusses changes that...

Recently, gay and lesbian couples have gone to court to force the government to allow same-sex couples to marry. Largely unnoticed during the debates surrounding same-sex marriages are their economic consequences, including the impact on government tax collections. It is well-known that a...

Discusses new empirical evidence on the role if income tax incentives in marital decisions and finds that over time studies show that taxes have a significant effect on the aggregate marriage rate. Finds that the marriage tax has an effect on marriages, timing of marriages, and divorce.

The effect of taxes on divorce has not been considered in previous empirical work on divorce. In this paper we examine the impact of the individual income tax on the likelihood of divorce. Using data from the Panel Study on Income Dynamics, we estimate a discrete-time hazard model of the...

Many government programs have implicit penalties or subsidies for marriage. For example, many couples pay higher income taxes when married than their combined tax liabilities as single filers, while many other couples receive a marriage subsidy because their joint taxes fall with marriage....