Whoa. Hang on.

I'm out of the loop. Eiri is now Tylanas? Am I right?

Anyways, back to the discussion.

Fortunately here in Canada, Gay couples are recognized as legal and can therefore claim their taxes as a couple. The contention was always what to call it. Gay Marriage? Gay Civil Union? Gay Partnership? The word marriage was what was the problem. So it was more a war of terminology.

In any case, I think it's a travesty how governments are putting such strict conditions on what love can be. Separate but Equal my arse.

Single people are being penalized because they haven't found someone they want to commit to, either. What about people who are widowed? Divorced? Discriminated against for their life choices/circumstances as well.

Solution? No marriage tax benefits for anyone.

There is a POINT to the marriage tax benefits, and it's NOT just to screw over single people.

Uh, again, since we don't want to discriminate against anyone, eliminating marriage tax benefits would fit the bill.

Uh, since we're not all marriage haters, your argument makes no sense.

Just read this site.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/mar_bene .htm

A civil union may give a couple some of the state rights, but not the federal rights of marriage.

How about we just allow gay marriage or change the definition of civil union so they can reap the same benefits. Or apply benefits and call them civil union benefits. To get rid of them for everyone when they serve a purpose is unnecessary.

I'm not arguing with you, I'm providing a possible solution.

Eliminating marriage tax benefits eliminates discrimination against individuals ineligible for marriage.

Note: nothing said of eliminating marriage or "hating" marriage.

What are the marriage tax benefits?

You pay less taxs; pretty obvious. And I think married couples deserve tax breaks.

Exactly my point. But right now the extremist christians in America don't want to allow that.

There is of course the marriage penalty, which will return in 2011, at which point couples who have income disparities will find it to be to their advantage to not be married.

That sounds like propaganda made up by people who dislike marriage.

Tax laws frequently sound like propaganda.

Last paragraph: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id= 109817,00.html

The new law sunsets in 2011.

http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/issin fo/sstaxsunset.htm

Um, I'm not sure what the tax breaks for married people are, anyone care to enlighten me? I checked out Eiri's link and only found property tax benefits in case of death of a spouse.....but nothing else. I'm a little curious.... I'm married!! Why don't I pay less taxes? Or do I, and I just don't know it?

I quickly checked the economic stimulus package to see that single people get $600 and couples get $1200... which makes perfect sense. (although perhaps the package is the subject of a different debate!)

Ok, but I would like to clarify that I realize there are a lot of benefits (economic and otherwise) to marriage, I would never argue that there aren't.

Does it have to do with fitting into a different income tax bracket?

Single heterosexuals are mentioned in eiri's article, too.

Ok, so all I'm finding online is that married couples usually have a combined income that places them in a higher tax bracket (therefore, the pay more taxes bracket) than they normally would be in... isn't this the 'marriage penalty"?

sorry, just trying to figure it out.

Here's what I'm finding, and it seems marriage is a benefit in some cases and a penalty in others. It depends on your personal financial situation.

"Now, as for getting married or not, that's almost always a personal decision instead of a tax decision. Strictly from a tax perspective, getting married makes the most sense when one spouse earns income and the other spouse doesn't earn income. That because one income is being spread over two people, and the income is now tax at the more favorable Married Filing Joint tax rates, and the married couple can enjoy higher limitations on retirement savings and other tax benefits. Again, strictly from a tax perspective, staying single makes the most sense when both life-partners earn income. That's because you can use different tax strategies for each partner. For example, the person with the lower income can take advantage of various child-related tax benefits (head of household filing status, child tax credit, earned income credit), while the person with the higher income can take advantage of various income-related tax strategies (as I discussed above)."


from http://taxes.about.com/od/taxplanning/qt/m arriage_tax.htm


Again, not that I'm denying that married people get multiple other benefits.

There's a despicable group of people for you.