Default answer: Yes. Whatever cash income is earned by either
partner
belongs to the marriage partnership as if it were one person.
They pool their income and pay one income-tax on a joint return.
In the United States, if they have quite different incomes,
they pay less total tax than if they filed separate income-tax returns.
This is called the "marriage bonus".
If they have nearly equal incomes, they pay more total tax
than if they were not married and able to file separately.
This is called the "marriage penalty".
And this 'penalty' might be reduced or eliminated in the future.
Other countries have different systems.
Perhaps the most fair system would be marriage-neutral:
The income-tax form would not ask whether the tax-payer is married or
not.
Right now in the United States, non-married couples (triples, etc.)
do not have any of the tax-benefits extended to married couples.
Each must pay tax on his or her own income,
without having the tax reduced because the income is shared
with a non-earning or a low-income partner.
Creative answers: As we begin the 21st century,
in most personal relationships both partners will have incomes.
So living-together relationships in the 21st century
will not be as economically simple as the days
when one partner earned all the money
and the other took care of the household and the children.
New times require new patterns of earning and spending.
Lenore Weitzman suggests one plan for sharing
earnings:
You establish a legal partnership
(like a law firm, a group of health-care providers, or a group of
architects).
Each year the total earnings of the partnership are added up
and divided equally among the partners.
Taxes are paid not by the partnership as a fiscal entity
but by each partner according to how much
he or she received from the partnership.
If you are married, you will probably file a joint income-tax return.
(At present joint income-tax returns are only available to married
couples.
But if your partnership agreement provides for real income sharing,
then each of you has the income defined in your partnership agreement.)
96 DESIGNER MARRIAGE: WRITE YOUR OWN RELATIONSHIP
CONTRACT by James Park Above you
have the first page of Question 18 from Designer
Marriage.
The next 8 pages explore various ways of sharing income.