(02-03-2020, 11:40 PM)EricC85 Wrote:

(02-02-2020, 03:28 PM)mikesez Wrote: I wonder how long ago they decided that a family's income tax rate should be reduced based on how many kids they have.
Many times I've heard people justifying it as society needs kids and we should encourage people to have them.
It's obvious that society needs kids. But I'm not sure those little tax incentives really cause more women to get pregnant and carry their pregnancies to completion.

I’m going to assume you have no children and don’t understand the tax rate adjustments for families versus single individuals?

There’s the earned income credit which replaced welfare monthly payments from the federal government (it like all other welfare programs is directly related to the size of the household vs income). Then there is the child tax credit which reduces the taxable income based upon family size. The argument is pretty easy to follow a family of 4 living on 60k is going to require more disposable income then a single individual making 60k therefore the amount of income taxes they pay is reduced proportionally by the size of the household.

Even under flat tax or fair tax plans the size of a household is factored in, I’m not aware of any tax system ever that did not recognize this basic principle?

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(02-03-2020, 09:45 PM)Last42min Wrote: A cursory search of the subject suggests I am correct, at least in this instance. The marriage tax came out in 1917, when the US needed money for WWI.

The income tax was established as a war time fund and was supposed to be temporary

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(02-03-2020, 05:50 PM)TrivialPursuit Wrote: Even though marriage is clearly a creation of religion it's become a legal agreement as well.

That's fine - I don't care if people want to get married - there shouldn't be financial incentives involved because that makes it social engineering.

People that are against the idea of marriage shouldn't be put in a different tax bracket because they choose to have children or step children out of wedlock.

Ok yeah you have no idea what your talking about. If you have a child or stepchild out of wedlock you get the same tax credit if you claim them as a dependent. But if your the step dad and the real dad says it’s his dependent he gets the credit not you. It has nothing to do with social engineering it is to do with who can legally Claim the dependent.