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Comment by darthrupert | Hacker News Reader

I'm more and more convinced that people who don't have kids should have double the tax burden compared to parents, at least for the first 5-10 years.

The stress is unimaginable, and then some people have the gall to complain when parents try to do it well. Appalling behaviour. I would not tolerate such complaints as a manager, but thankfully I have never met such attitude in my life.

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Kidless workers do have some more tax burden. If you presume that taxes are wisely spent, and some of it on education, equal tax payments result in unequal benefit. Not complaining, Just explaining. I live in a country that has decent, tax funded, public education; I understand you may not. But as a kidless tax payer, I fully support decent public education paid for with my tax contributions. I don't think tax should be used as a punishment, especially not since some people can't have kids, it's not their fault.

Arguably, if you consider things like military spend to be a benefit equally shared by those living in the country being secured: a couple paying taxes with no kids compared to a couple with two kids, are paying double the tax burden already. Anything spent on education, is (arguably) above that.

Careful what you wish for! ;)

That’s only one limited side of it. The very limited tax contribution you’re making towards their education pays off in spades for you. When you’re old, they’re fully funding your social security, providing you with healthcare, keeping you alive militarily for a long time after you have any practical value to society (well, it’s true). If they were not, and only people with children only could take advantage of the resources of the young and healthy, you wouldn’t make it to old age. Parents end up putting up the bulk of the capital to produce these highly profitable resources, and let’s face it, you’re reaping the disproportionate benefits, especially as you get older. Also, I don’t have any data, but I would wager the safe majority of childless adults are not due to infertility. I’m not saying people should be forced to have children or anything- but it’s hard to take seriously the argument that childless people are victimized by slightly excess taxes.

Not only that, imagine living in a country with terrible public education. I'm sure crime rates and other similar indicators would be way up. Not exactly a fantastic place to live.

Hear hear! I remember reading an op-ed a decade or so ago, where the author said she didn't mind her taxes going to public education, because she didn't want to die in case someone makes a fatal mistake due to their lack of education...

Would you then get those 5-10 years of extra tax refunded if you have kids at a later point? Or are you only going to endorse extra tax on sterile people?

Technically, parents would have 1/2 the income tax, so nothing needs to be refunded.

Why should my decision to never have children be taxed at all? My carbon footprint is a hell of a lot smaller than most.

There is already the EITC, and you get deductions for them as dependents. As a parent, I don't feel a need to punish the childless. Money != time or stress.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30787874.

The first 5-10 years of ... what?

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