https://github.com/bramp/marriage-penalty
Graph of the Marriage Bonus / Penalty
https://github.com/bramp/marriage-penalty
Last synced: 10 months ago
JSON representation
Graph of the Marriage Bonus / Penalty
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/bramp/marriage-penalty
- Owner: bramp
- License: bsd-2-clause
- Created: 2024-07-04T23:32:46.000Z (about 2 years ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2024-07-04T23:35:17.000Z (about 2 years ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-08-29T22:27:20.813Z (10 months ago)
- Language: R
- Size: 377 KB
- Stars: 0
- Watchers: 1
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: LICENSE
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
# Graph of the Marriage Bonus / Penalty
by [Andrew Brampton](https://bramp.net)
> [!WARNING]
> **Disclaimer**: None of this is financial advice, just my afternoon of hacking code.
This project uses [tax simulations](https://taxsim.nber.org/taxsim35/) to graph the marriage penalty in the US. The marriage penalty is a phenomenon where married couples pay more in taxes than they would if they were single and filing separately. Sometimes a marriage bonus exists if the income of the two spouses is significantly different.
## Examples
For the 2023 tax year, for a couple living in California, assuming income from wages only, the breakdown is as such:
1. If the primary taxpayer earns $500,000 and the spouse earns $50,000 then there is a tax bonus of ~10%, over the total tax paid if they were not married.
2. If both spouses earn $250,000 then there is a penality of between 0 and 1% over being unmarried.
3. If both are tech-moguls their penality is 4% or higher over being unmarried.
Another example, for the 2023 tax year, a couple living in California, assuming income from wages with an additional 5% dividends + 5% interest + 5% short-term capital gains + 5% long-term capital gains.
## Create Data
Edit `tax.r` for your needs, and then
```shell
Rscript tax.r
# This will generate penalty.csv and penalty.svg
```
## Pre-generated Data
* [penalty-simple.csv](penalty-simple.csv) Income is 100% from wages, not captain gains, etc.
* [penalty-extra.csv](penalty-extra.csv) Income from wages + additional 5% (dividends, interest, short-term capital gains, long-term capital gains).
## Sources
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marriage-penalty.asp
https://taxsim.nber.org/taxsim35/
https://www.shaneorr.io/r/usincometaxes/
https://www.shaneorr.io/r/usincometaxes/articles/taxsim-output