Fellow childfree folks, how much did you love writing the check out to the IRS after hearing all the

[ieoeja]

140. Your numbers differ from what I see published.

Last edited Fri Apr 20, 2012, 05:11 PM - Edit history (1)

I believe you gave a figure of $12,000 for a childless single person equating to nearly 3x that for a single person with one child. Assuming you are using only personal deductions your single person's deduction would be $3,700 which puts their taxable income at $8,300.

For a household of a single person and one child the deductions would be $3,700 for the adult, $3,700 for the child plus an extra $1,000 for the child. So a single adult and child with a combined income of $16,700 would pay the same tax as a single person with a $12,000 deduction.

$16,700 vs $12,000
2 people vs 1 person


If you do not want separate brackets/etc for a parent, then the only fair thing is to let children file taxes just like the adults. Why don't you try running those numbers. Sure, the adult making $16,700 will pay more than the adult paying $12,000, but with negative taxes on the poorest (and the child has $0 reportable income), I would be surprised if the tax refund for that child did not exceed the tax difference between the adults. Which means the 2nd household's ultimate tax bill would be even better than under the current laws.

On edit: I am going by published tax brackets which say the tax rate for taxable income of $8,300 is 10% no matter how many adults and children are in the house. If you are looking at tax tables that say differently, then I am missing something.