Decompiling Oppression #136
Sam McVeety
It was heartening to see (and join) people taking to the streets this weekend, articulating a collective rejection of not only the current economic chaos, but also the scapegoating of immigrants, trans people, and other vulnerable communities. Reprising our theme from last week, a couple of pieces that are speaking to me come from Elizabeth Lopatto and Josh Marshall, twin rebukes (and indictments) of the administration's attempts at distorting reality itself.
This being April and all, it's tax season, and I wanted to focus this entry on one particular (gendered, racialized) eccentricity of the tax code: its treatment of married couples. Our story starts with the hearings this week in the Washington House and Senate committees that are considering the aforementioned (wealth) tax on intangible property. I had the privilege to testify before both committees, alongside many others in favor. Of the speakers against, though, a recurring theme was the idea of a slippery slope, where governments can't resist expanding taxes.
Well, actually: sometimes taxes aren't so much shaped by governments as they are shaped by rich people suing the government, and this brings us to how married couples are taxed. We'll be scratching the surface here, but for a deeper treatment, I would refer you (again) to Dorothy Brown's The Whiteness of Wealth. When the United States first introduced an income tax, it only applied at an individual level: people paid taxes on their own income, and that was that.
One particular (married) Washington State resident didn't like that, and sued the federal government, kicking off a case that would reach the Supreme Court, Poe v. Seaborn. The case was built on the fact that Washington was (and is) a community property state, where all assets acquired during marriage are jointly held between spouses. Because his wife held joint ownership of any income, then the husband claimed he should only be taxed as if his income were 50% of what it was. The Court agreed, and the Seaborns were granted their lower tax rate.
What happened next is both fascinating and depressingly predictable. States rushed to pass community property laws, so that their residents could take advantage of the lower federal tax rates. But, were husbands really so eager to share half of their property with their wives (even though this preceded no-fault divorce laws)? (They weren't.) Oklahoma attempted to split the difference and make community property opt-in, though the Court rejected this approach. Congress eventually formalized different tax brackets for married couples in 1948. Tellingly, many states repealed their community property laws shortly thereafter. This was actually a huge step backward for women's rights: the joint tax return allowed for husbands to get the tax benefits of marriage, without their wives retaining any of the rights that community property would entail.
Beyond this whole layer of gender, there is less obviously a racial element as well. You see, not all married couples benefitted from filing their taxes jointly; only those with a significant income disparity between spouses got a favorable rate compared to filing individually. Specifically (per Professor Brown):
Any couple with two working spouses in which one partner makes at least 20 percent of the family’s total income will pay a marriage penalty. ... A household with a 30-70 split pays more and a household with a 50-50 split pays the highest penalty of all.
Those couples that benefitted tended to be white: with the earning power to have a single-income household. Structural racism permeates the list of causes here: Black individuals tend to earn less income for the same work, and are less likely to be considered for higher-paying job categories. Beyond the tax penalty, there is also the reality that two working parents pulling together a joint income of $X is very different from a single-earner household at $X. At the risk of stating the obvious: in the first case, both spouses are working, potentially full-time. In the other case, only one spouse is performing paid labor, while the other can perform unpaid labor like childcare.
Returning to gender: it also bears mentioning that a tax policy that encourages single-earner households is encouraging a rather rigid set of gender roles, with husbands as the breadwinners and wives staying home. Here again, a set of formulae and numbers that might seem to be a neutral set of standards actually can have profound impacts on how people live their lives and their ability to attain success.
Here are this week's invitations:
Personal: When you think about your parents and grandparents, would they have gotten a marriage bonus or paid a penalty in their taxes?
Communal: When you look at the different tax systems in operation where you live, what values do they reflect?
Solidarity: Support Wa Na Wari and their work to create space for Black ownership, possibility, and belonging through art, historic preservation, and connection.
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