[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 135 (Thursday, October 2, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H8309-H8310]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     ELIMINATE MARRIAGE PENALTY TAX

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana [Mr. McIntosh] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to report to my colleagues 
today about a project that the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Weller] and 
I have started in the last few weeks. I want to thank each of my 
colleagues who have joined us in cosponsoring our legislation to 
eliminate the marriage penalty tax in our Tax Code.
  I first started focusing on this when I received a letter from a 
constituent of mine, Sharon Mallory, who lives in Straughn, IN. Sharon 
wrote to me about how she and her boyfriend wanted to get married, went 
to the accountant, and found out that she would have to give up her 
$900 tax refund and start paying $2,800 if they got married. Sharon 
closed her letter of last February saying, ``We hope some day the 
government will allow us to get married by not penalizing us. It broke 
our hearts when we found out we can't afford it.''
  And it broke my heart to think that Sharon and those like her that 
want to get married and start families in this country are not able to 
because our Tax Code penalizes them simply because they are married.
  I have started a project on my website, and I wanted to share the 
results of this with my colleagues. People, when they want to 
communicate with me about the marriage penalty, have started leaving me 
e-mails at my site, www.House.gov/McIntosh, where we have got a special 
page on the marriage penalty and what it means to people. So, if I may, 
let me show my colleagues the map of the United States and some of the 
dozens of responses that we have gotten.
  My colleagues, these are just a few of the communities around the 
United States where people have written me these e-mails explaining to 
me what the marriage penalty has meant to them. Let me share with my 
colleagues a few of them.
  Wayne Shelly, who lives in Dayton, OH, wrote this:

       Penalizing for marriage flies in the face of common sense. 
     This is a classic example of Government policy not supporting 
     that which it wishes to promote. In our particular situation, 
     my girlfriend and I would incur an annual net penalty of 
     $2,000 or approximately $167 a month. Though not huge, this 
     was enough to pay our monthly phone, cable, water, and home 
     insurance bills. Therefore, the net effect to us is that, if 
     we remain unmarried, the United States Government will pay 
     these four bills for us.

  He might have gone on to say, conversely, if we do get married, 
instead of paying those bills, we are going to have to dig into our 
pockets and pay the Government that money.
  A second message was from William Dixon of Osgood, IN.

       I was a single parent paying child support. I remarried in 
     1990. Because of my change of status, I owed a tax bill that 
     I could not pay. I am still trying to pay these taxes and 
     penalties.

  Terri Wyncoop of Springfield, VA, wrote to me:

       I knew it was more than enough because I had never owed 
     before I was married. However, when I married I owed every 
     year. We could owe anything from $500 to $1,000. We both 
     claimed zero, and took out an additional $25 weekly out of 
     both of our checks and still owed. Unfortunately, our 
     marriage failed because of financial reasons.

  Does it not just break the hearts of my colleagues to know that there 
are American citizens like Terri Wyncoop of Springfield, VA, who 
attribute the breakdown of their family to the fact that this 
government penalized them for when they were married?
  I can just picture the desperate straits of those two young people 
who want their marriage to succeed deciding, ``Well, let us take more 
out of our paychecks in order not to pay taxes at the end of the 
year,'' and to find themselves still penalized and hit with that 
terrible burden.
  Now, those financial crises oftentimes come in at a time when young 
people are trying to make a new life together. And people say to me, 
how can that make a difference? Well, I want to share with my 
colleagues a few statistics of what has happened in this country since 
1969 when we started penalizing marriages in our Tax Code.
  The National Fatherhood Initiative reports that since the marriage 
penalty was created for the average American, the probability that a 
marriage taking place today will end in divorce or permanent separation 
is calculated to be

[[Page H8310]]

60 percent of those married. The percent of married couples households 
has plummeted from 71 percent to merely 55 percent of our households in 
America today.
  In America, 1 out of every 11 adults is divorced, 3 times the 
proportion the year the marriage penalty first came into effect. So 
this penalty, as we can see from across the country, is having a 
devastating effect on American families. We must eliminate it from our 
Tax Code.
  I am proud to say that the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Weller] and I 
have introduced a bill, along with now close to 200 cosponsors, that 
will do just that. We will not stop until we have succeeded in passing 
this legislation. I urge my fellow Members of Congress to join us in 
that effort.

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