Equal taxable income does not mean equal ability to pay taxes

Evidence

Meanwhile, Kristen and Greg rack up expenses that single-earning couples can avoid. They pay for daycare so they can both work; they own and pay for insurance for two cars so they can both commute to their jobs; and they take care of household needs after they come home in the evening, instead of having the flexibility to attend to them throughout the day. And both have student loan debt, though only Kristen has a degree. (As we’ll see in chapter 3, having student debt without a degree is far more common for black families than white ones.) In other words, just as the Browns and the Seaborns earned their $90,000 under very different circumstances, a black dual-income couple and a white single-income couple may have the same taxable income—but they do not have the same ability to pay. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 134

Categorization

• DEFINE: Reframes ‘horizontal equity’ — that equal income couples pay equal taxes — as flawed because it ignores divergent expenses and earning contexts.