RACE, ETHNICITY, AND TAXATION OF THE FAMILY: THE MANY SHADES OF THE MARRIAGE PENALTY/BONUS
James Alm (jalm@tulane.edu),
Sebastian Leguizamon (j.sebastian.leguizamon@wku.edu) and
Susane Leguizamon (susane.leguizamon@wku.edu)
Additional contact information
Sebastian Leguizamon: Western Kentucky University
Susane Leguizamon: Western Kentucky University
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: J. Sebastian Leguizamon
No 2304, Working Papers from Tulane University, Department of Economics
Abstract:
Recent events have increased the focus on racial justice. One aspect of this attention is the realization that race interacts in important – but often not fully understood – ways with taxation, including taxation of the family. In this paper, we quantify the racial disparity in the magnitude of the “marriage penalty” or “marriage bonus”, using individual micro-level data from the Current Population Survey for the years 1992 to 2019. We find that Black married couples nearly always face a higher averaged marriage penalty (or a smaller averaged marriage bonus) compared to white married couples, even when we compare couples with similar family earnings. This occurs because the incomes of Black married couples tend to be more evenly split between spouses than the incomes of white married couples. The differences between white couples and Hispanic couples tend to be smaller, but nonetheless they are still present in many cases, with Hispanic couples also facing a marriage penalty. We conclude with suggestions for reform of the individual income tax that would reduce the disparate racial and ethnic treatments across families.
Keywords: Marriage; individual income tax; taxable unit; marriage penalty and bonus; race; ethnicity. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H24 J12 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab, nep-pbe and nep-pub
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)
Downloads: (external link)
http://repec.tulane.edu/RePEc/pdf/tul2304.pdf First Version, April 2023 (application/pdf)
Related works:
Journal Article: Race, Ethnicity, and Taxation of the Family: The Many Shades of the Marriage Penalty/Bonus (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tul:wpaper:2304
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in Working Papers from Tulane University, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kerui Geng (kgeng@tulane.edu).