Wait Just a Minute, Governor Perry!

Hat Tip to JoAnn Fleming Chairman of the TEA Party Caucus Advisory Committee for the 82^nd Texas State Legislature. She is the full-time volunteer Executive Director of Grassroots America – We the People

“Why would Governor Perry penalize married couples with his flat tax plan? Families are already under attack. The last thing we need is to have marriage further undermined by the federal tax code. Read this interesting analysis by Phyliss Schlafly, the great dame of Eage Forum. ” – JoAnn Fleming

Photo Courtesy of Gage Skidmore

Rick Perry’s Marriage Problems

By Phyliss Schlafly

November 12, 2011

Does Rick Perry want to undermine traditional marriage? This question leaps out from his new 20 percent flat tax plan, which would eliminate all tax advantages for married couples in which one spouse is the primary breadwinner.

For more than 60 years, the federal income tax has treated the family as an economic unit. A husband and wife have the benefit of pooling their income in a joint tax return which affords larger deductions and lower rates.

Perry would replace the pooling of husband-wife income with a system in which each individual, regardless of marital status, would owe federal taxes on his or her separate income. Perry’s plan offers “generous standard deductions of $12,500 for individuals and their dependents” — which ignores the fact that children are “dependents” of both their parents, even if one earns all or most of the family income.

If an income tax is truly “flat,” filing status wouldn’t matter because a wife is taxed at the same rate as her husband. But Perry’s so-called flat tax isn’t anywhere near flat, so it matters greatly that he offers the same standard allowances to alternative lifestyles as for married couples, allowing, for example, two unrelated adults living with two children to avoid income tax on their first $50,000 of income.

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