How Much Can Saying “I Do” Impact Your Tax Liability?

Authors

Mary Capron

Abstract

President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, 2025. Notably, the Bill extended many provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that Congress passed in 2017. This paper will explore marriage penalties through the lens of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Taxes in the United States are based on a progressive system. Simply put, this means that all taxpayers do not pay the same amount in taxes; instead, they are treated differently depending on various factors such as earned income, number of dependents, and marital status. This system creates some marriage penalties in the tax code. A marriage penalty occurs when a couple has a higher tax liability because they got married and filed jointly as opposed to remaining single and filing as single. Marriage penalties exist within the tax code because Congress built the code on two principles: the principle of progressivity and the principle of treating all married couples equally, regardless of how much income each spouse earns. As a result, the tax code forfeits the principle of marriage neutrality. Multiple courts have determined these penalties are constitutional. Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, there are some marriage penalties. Namely, this paper will explore these penalties as they exist in certain tax brackets for higher income earners and in some credits available to lower income earners. This paper will explore two solutions: overhauling the tax code and addressing specific portions of the tax code individually. An overhaul of the tax code would be impractical. Contrastingly, addressing individual marriage penalties in the tax code has been done by Congress before and is a practical solution.

First Page

172

Recommended Citation

Mary Capron, How Much Can Saying “I Do” Impact Your Tax Liability?, 9 Bus. Entrepreneurship & Tax L. Rev. 172 (2025).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/betr/vol9/iss2/7