Law Commons^™

Rethinking Tax Priorities: Marriage Neutrality, Children, And Contemporary Families, James M. Puckett

Journal Articles

Tax scholarship has long struggled with whether married taxpayers should be taxed differently from unmarried taxpayers. Currently, married taxpayers are subject to different tax rates than unmarried taxpayers, and may file a joint tax return. A married couple may pay a higher or lower amount of tax than an unmarried couple with the same total income, and a single person generally pays more tax on a given income than a married couple with a single earner with the same income. These outcomes are difficult to reconcile with a commitment to income tax progressivity, which in theory requires that higher incomes …

The Parenting Tax Penalty: A Framework For Income Tax Reform, Charles R.T. O'Kelley

Scholarly Works

Part I considers the proper tax treatment of out-of-pocket parenting expenses such as the costs incurred in providing food, clothing, shelter, and other goods and services to children for their consumption. Part I first characterizes the principal design alternatives to the present flat dependency deduction. It then examines the dominant accretion definition of income and concludes that the current flat dependency deduction is more consistent with the accretion concept and our actual governing beliefs than is any of the alternatives advocated by its critics.

Part II considers the tax relevance of imputed income from self-performed services. It explains (1) how …