Started doing my taxes.
Entered my W-2 info. TurboTax said the feds owed me $2500. Bonus.
Entered Sally's W-2 info. TurboTax said we owe the feds $1400. Can you say "marriage penalty"?
Just for reference, she makes half what I do. And in fairness this is before deductions and credits. But still. I take zero exemptions and even let them have an extra $25 per paycheck and still can't get level with the bastards without having to itemize.
From a tax standpoint, we'd be better off divorced. (Which is probably what Barack wants anyway.)
Motherfuckers.
And I'm not even a flat-tax advocate. I have no problem paying a fair share and I don't believe a flat tax is fair, unless there are several levels of flatness. But I don't want my hard-earned money wasted by the assholes in Congress and their minions in the bureaucracy, no matter how they tax me.
And how they tax me.
(Sorry, couldn't resist.)
I don't think the tax system should be literally flat either, although I think it should be flatter. Lets face it the "rich" people who live in a major coastal metropolis and make $250,000 per year might have a lower standard of living than a similar household getting by on $125,000 per year here in central Indiana.
Where you're at in our tax system, you'll get more after tax income from an extra hour scouring for itemized deductions than from an extra hour of working.