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Comment by developer1 | Hacker News Reader

I'm so tired of the financial benefits that a) married couples, and b) parents, receive. Being married or having children should provide exactly zero financial benefit from governments beyond what bachelors/bachelorettes receive. It makes absolutely no sense that simply hitching yourself to another person or reproducing magically means you get government handouts. Neither of these situations provide substantial benefit to society deserving of special treatment. The discrimination against those of us who remain single is just mind-blowing.

Every adult should have the same government-mandated financial burden and reimbursement cheques in the mail. Why shacking up or pumping out kids gives the adults involved an advantage in their financial livelihoods is ridiculous. :(

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> Neither of these situations provide substantial benefit to society deserving of special treatment.

Are you kidding? You've heard of the national debt? Who, do you suppose, is going to pay for that? Nations need children. Lots of children.

And children are stupidly, ridiculously expensive. In a bygone era, children were assets. Now from even before birth, having a child is just about the most expensive financial decision you could possibly make. And taxes, like college, are priced progressively. As a society we generally want our families to be able to feed and clothe their children, so the taxes those adults can afford to pay while doing that are necessarily lower.

It can be a serious problem. Japan is facing extreme financial hardships in the future due to a rapidly and severely declining birth rate. They're doing all they can to get people reproducing.

http://www.ibtimes.com/japan-encourages-young-people-date-ma...

Married couples have different tax treatments because of community property rules, and because the unit of taxation is the household, rather than the earner. It would be rather regressive to tax a two-person household each earning $25k/yr at the same rate as a single individual making $50k/yr, despite the fact that household income is the same. The intent of the different treatment of married-filing-jointly returns is to attempt to balance the tax paid by married couples so that it's roughly in line with the taxes that would be paid by individuals filing separately. This may result in tax benefits or penalties depending on the earnings status of each of the spouses, but it's hardly an across-the-board. "Tax divorces" are a thing; high-income couples may find it financially advantageous to divorce (even if they continue to live together as a de facto married couple).

As far as kids being an "advantage in their financial livelihoods"...well, yeah, that's just hilarious. Kids are expensive. Tax breaks for kids are a progressive measure intended to make it slightly easier to afford to provide for one if you're in the lower echelons of the economy. If you think that anyone is having kids because of the financial advantages they convey, you're high.

Regarding the article, the "financial benefit" isn't from being married, it's from not being a dependent of your parents. There's no married person favoritism at play here; it's simple dependent eligibility status. You can achieve the same thing by being 24 years old, or by being legally emancipated.

> It would be rather regressive to tax a two-person household each earning $25k/yr at the same rate as a single individual making $50k/yr, despite the fact that household income is the same.

Two individual people earning $25k should pay a lower rate of tax than one individual earning $50k, yes.

But a marriage-based tax break is not the right way to implement this. Tax them individually, just like everyone else, with a progressive tax.

The married couple already have significant financial advantages over the single person: the financial security that comes from having two incomes (or even from having one person managing the household, if that's what you're imagining) is huge.

But historically, two income households have not been common. This is a recent (past two generations) turn of events. I agree that a marriage-based tax break may not have been sensible, although now with gay marriage legal nationwide, as long as the government also recognizes civil unions, it may be ok and solve the part of the problem you note.

Dual-income families have been the norm for 40 years now, out of the 100 years that the modern income tax has even existed.

Two people making $25k/yr should be individually paying the taxes on their own $25k. There should be no ability to transfer tax burden between partners. An adult makes $25k, that adult pays the taxes due on $25k. It's not a difficult concept, and puts everyone in the same position, partner or not.

>Why shacking up or pumping out kids gives the adults involved an advantage in their financial livelihoods is ridiculous

short answer: because without kids society (and so government) dies. It's becoming more and more expensive to raise them (at least in the western world).

In my opinion in most of Europe these benefits are not enough as it's one of the most important contribution to society an individual can give (I'm not a parent and I won't become one in the near future).

If it makes you feel better, most of those financial benefits disappear once you cross a certain income threshold, as I so unexpectedly found out post-marriage.

Participating in large-scale population growth planning provides a substantial benefit to society.

The post/article to not describing some enhanced subsidy or discount that a married person gets, it is about how a take advantage of how a student's ability to pay is determined.

If a student is single, both them and their parent's income is considered because the student is a dependent. If the student marries, only their and the their spouse's income is counted.

Do you have stock in any company or work in a startup? If so, parents provide you a huge benefit. How much money is there in the advertising fueled-web when the current batch of 18-35 year olds isn't replaced by a fresh batch? The assumption of at least stable population is absolutely prices into all of the deals you read about on HN.

And increasingly, married people pay a penalty for that, at least in the U.S. tax code. My wife and I would save a bunch of money if we got divorced.

Why not get legally divorced (but not socially)? As long as you don't get married again it looks like that's not fraud by the IRS. Page 23 of http://www.jefftk.com/abrams2012.pdf has:

"Although the IRS attempted to use Boyter in several subsequent cases that dealt with divorces allegedly entered into to lessen tax liability, courts have sided with the IRS only in cases where the couple remarried after the taxincentivized divorce. In cases where the couple remains divorced, the sham transaction rationale is not available. For example, in U.S. v. Taylor, the government sought to satisfy a tax lien against a man by going after his pension plan—90 percent of which was transferred to his ex-wife in their divorce proceedings—by contending that the man had obtained a sham divorce in order to shield his assets.115 The court distinguished Boyter, noting that while the couple remarried in that case, in the present situation the couple remained divorced.116 Thus, the test that appears to operate in the tax context is a “divorce-plus” test: we know that a divorce is fraudulent if it is followed by the “plus” of remarriage."

I don't want to pay less taxes. I have a philosophical objection to unmarried couples paying less than married couples with the same income. Paying less myself doesn't fix that.

As the cultural and social power and significance of the institution of marriage starts to wear off, more people will start abusing it for the benefits. A lot already are -- my friend was telling of a guy who divorced his wife in the papers purely to get tax benefits, even though they're still together as man and wife.

Also conversely, another mate of mine was suggesting in complete seriousness to another friend of his that they should get married to get nice affordable housing benefits; both male (I mention they're both male because I think if the friends were male-female, social stigma would be stronger, but because they are old buddies from high school, this subject was discussed in a "hacking the system" mindset. It is very interesting to see that the institution of marriage is seeing its power drop, I think years ago people would absolutely gasp at someone doing this, now it's like "woah, cool trick, I'm gonna marry my friend and get in on this too!")

> Why shacking up or pumping out kids gives the adults involved an advantage in their financial livelihoods

Even with all the tax benefits that children bring, parents still have way less money available than comparable couples without kids.

This financial disadvantage is a serious disincentive to having children. Do you want to live in an aging society without kids that will be dead in ~80 years?

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