Related Links • House Votes to Cut 'Marriage Tax' (Post, Feb. 11) • House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's Web site on the marriage penalty • The Marriage Tax Elimination Act • Congressional Profile: Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.) • Campaign 2000 • Live: "Free Media" • Who do you want to talk to? E-mail us

Friday, February 11, 2000

The so-called marriage penalty tax, which both Democrats and Republicans have decried on the campaign stump, combines the incomes of married couples and pushes them into a higher tax bracket. Candidates and elected officials at every level have extolled the virtues of overhauling the tax code and getting rid of the marriage tax.

Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.) sponsored of the H.R. 6, better known as the Marriage Tax Elimination Act, which passed in the House Thursday by a vote of 268 to 158. Rep. Weller joined "Free Media" on Friday, Feb. 11 to talk the bill and changing the way taxes are collected from married couples. The transcript follows:

Free Media: Good afternoon, Rep. Weller, and welcome. Can you tell us about the vote on the marriage tax this afternoon? And with the variety of suggestions you must have heard for dealing with the marriage tax, why did you structure your proposal the way you did?

Rep. Jerry Weller: The marriage tax penalty results from unfair complications in the tax code where married couples who are both in work force and filing jointly are pushed into a higher tax bracket. Say you have a machinist and a school teacher who have identical incomes making $31,000 each, has when they're single the 15 percent tax rate up to $25,000. But when they decide to marry, their combined income pushes them into a higher tax bracket – the 28 percent bracket. That would cost them an extra $1,400.

There are 66 different marriage penalties in tax code, many resulting from so-called targeted tax cuts created in the past seven years. The income eligibility thresholds that qualify you for certain tax breaks have rarely been double for married couples what the thresholds are for single people. The vast majority of marriage penalty in our tax code come from joint filing.

The bill we passed out of the House yesterday wipes out the penalty for the 25 million married couples that suffer from the marriage tax penalty. Roughly half of those couples do not itemize, which means they use the standard deduction. The other half itemize because they're homeowners, because they give to their church, synagogue or charities, or they because they may have educational expenses that qualify them for tax deductions. And we provide marriage tax relief for every married couple by doubling the standard deduction for joint filers to twice that for singles. And we help itemizers by widening the bottom bracket – the 15 percent bracket. Every single person who files pays 15 percent on the first $25,000 earned, but married couples who file jointly pay 28 percent at $44,000 in income. We widened the 15% bracket in this example to $50,000, so a married couple filing jointly can earn twice the amount as a single filer in the 15 percent bracket. Our goal is to make the tax code more fair by making the tax code marriage-neutral, so that two married people living together earning the same amount won't be taxed more than two single people living together in the same circumstances.

There's a third provision in the bill which helps the working poor who utilized the Earned Income Tax Credit. We adjust the income eligibility threshold to relieve the marriage penalty for the earned income credit.

Gaithersburg, Md.: I just got married in '99, and based on a first look at my taxes, it's going to cost us an extra $4,000 to be married this year. In addition to being kicked into a higher tax bracket, we're losing the ability to deduct our student loan interest – something that we'd both qualify for as single people, but now that we're married we make too much money. We're only two years out of college. I was shocked to say the least.

I always thought that "married filing separately" would take care of the problem for people like us, and allow us to file as if we were still single. However, that option looks even worse. And what I've read about the current proposals is that they'll "reduce" the penalty, but I haven't heard the word "eliminate." So here's my question: Why not make "married filing separately" work exactly like a "single" tax form? Same tables, same deductions, same everything. That way, married people who benefit from the current system still do, and married people who are now penalized are guaranteed to never have to pay more than they did when they were single. It's simple and it's always fair. What am I missing?

Rep. Jerry Weller: The option of being married and filing separately we've explored. Unfortunately, it created a homemaker penalty for one-earner households. Our goal was to wipe out as much of the marriage penalty as we can without unfairly treating one-earner households vs. two-earner households and providing tax relief for both itemizers and not itemizers. We also wanted to avoid raising taxes on someone else to provide marriage tax relief. The proposal that we passed achieves that goal. But the questioner is correct; we do not wipe out the marriage penalty tax for everyone, but we've done it for as many people as possible. The primary beneficiaries – those with incomes between $30,000 and $75,000 combined. For those with higher incomes, they will receive tax relief, but their relief will probably be $1,200 to $1,400, once the legislation is phased in.

Crystal City, Va.: Since this bill may be vetoed by the president and has been criticized that it provides tax benefits to those couples not being penalized, I have a suggestion. Why not allow all married couples to file a "combined single" return just like the Commonwealth of Virginia does? It allows the wages of both spouses to be taxed at the lowest level instead of the current system that ends up penalizing couples who are both wage earners.

Rep. Jerry Weller: Unfortunately, the Clinton administration is talking out of both sides of its mouth. The president mentioned the need to address the marriage tax penalty in his State of the Union address last month, but his treasury secretary is recommending he not sign the bill. Which is unfortunate, because it's a matter of fairness. We should be helping every couple that files jointly – those who itemize and those who don't, etc.

The Democratic alternative would provide only about 1/4 the amount of tax relief, and would deny those who itemize their taxes, leaving out homeowners and those who give to charity. Millions of married couples would continue to be stiffed by the marriage tax penalty.

I'm not familiar with the Virginia system. But we've explored many of the ideas that have been offered, and our goal has been to provide marriage tax relief without further complications to the tax code and to help everyone who suffers from the marriage tax penalty without raising taxes on someone else.

Free Media: Rep. Weller had to leave for an event, so that was our last question for him today. Thanks to Rep. Weller, and to everyone who joined us. We have seen and saved all of your questions and comments –- they were great.

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