Just One More Reason to Hate the Income Tax

I have written in another blog all the reasons why I hate our taxation system.  Taxing income is perhaps the most sinister way a government can collect taxes.  It is easy to hide the taxes and it can be manipulated it in so many ways to confuse you.  I ran straight into one of those today.

The Marriage Penalty is one of the most obvious ways this is true.  It is just absolutely stupid that your taxes should change whether you get married or if you stay single.  Of course, this is going to be true in any progressive income tax.  There is just no way to make a system that is completely tax neutral.  I tried to figure out what the best course of action for me to take on my taxes now that I am a married man.  I am a pretty smart guy and I'm pretty knowledgeable of finances.  But it seriously hurt my head to try and figure out what was going to happen to my tax situation now that I'm a married.  At the end of it I still didn't understand what the heck was going to happen and I'm pretty sure I'm going to owe the government more money than if we had not gotten married.  I wish we could just have a nice simple tax system which was anything but a progressive income tax with a myriad of deductions.  Add that to the impending tax increases we are all about to face (which I'll discuss in my next post) and you can understand how frustrated I am becoming with the whole thing.

Is it any wonder why I, and a few other people I know, are seriously considering moving to a state without income tax.  It is probably the one thing I miss about living in Washington state.  Although when it was 80 and sunny here today and rainy and 50 there, I only miss it so much.