ABSTRACT
The marriage penalty created by using the married couple as the tax unit is only one of many marriage penalties in the Code. This chapter focuses on the tax unit because it has received a significant amount of attention for a long time. The Revenue Act of 1948 made income splitting, previously enjoyed by all couples only within community property states, a national privilege. One of these politically motivated changes granted married taxpayers the option to split their combined income and double the tax owed on one-half of their total income, resulting in a marriage bonus for some that was sometimes called Uncle Sam's dowry. Tax reduction trumped gender equity. Each year the traditional family with a single breadwinner became less prevalent, the percentage of couples who were affected by the marriage penalty increased. However, if tax policy was simply not a significant concern for most women, their relative indifference to their own co-opting might be less surprising.
