Marriage itself triggers net tax penalties for black couples but bonuses for whites

Evidence

When my parents, James and Dottie, got married, they thought a lot about money and how to save it, right down to the homemade potato salad they served at their wedding reception. But they didn’t think about their taxes as something that could help or hurt them. Most Americans go into marriage the same way, not factoring penalties or bonuses into their decisions (though a 2015 Tax Foundation report, which did not analyze results by race, suggested that those penalties and bonuses do ultimately affect how much each spouse works). But marriage for most black Americans—especially low-income black Americans eligible for the EITC—is likely to result in a tax increase. For middle-class black Americans, marriage does not result in a tax cut, as it does for their white peers. Married black Americans are subject to the highest marginal tax rate and are less likely to get a tax cut like their white peers. Marriage pays off for most white Americans—but not most black Americans. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 156

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Marriage yields tax cuts for whites but not for blacks; Married black couples face marriage penalties at far higher rates than white couples — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax…, 149; White couples’ marriage bonuses reflect a single-wage-earner archetype built into tax policy — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax…, 145 (+5 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Marriage yields tax cuts for whites but not for blacks; Married black couples face marriage penalties at far higher rates than white couples — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax…, 149; White couples’ marriage bonuses reflect a single-wage-earner archetype built into tax policy — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax…, 145 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Marriage yields tax cuts for whites but not for blacks #corroborates (0.95)