Bill to Repeal Marriage Tax Is Backed, Shelved

The Senate voted Wednesday to support repeal of the so-called marriage tax penalty, but backers of the measure then withdrew the bill because it violated budget rules.

“With this vote . . . we send a strong message to the House that we want to eliminate this marriage tax penalty,” Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) said after he withdrew his bill.

The measure would repeal a tax code provision that forces some married couples to pay higher taxes than they would as two single taxpayers.

The Senate defeated an effort last week to attach the tax code change, which would cost $153 billion over five years, to a fiscal 1999 spending bill for the legislative branch.

Critics said using one of the 13 spending bills that Congress must pass before the new fiscal year starts Oct. 1 was the wrong way to change the tax code.

But on Wednesday, the Senate voted, 51 to 48, in support of the marriage tax penalty repeal as it defeated a motion to set it aside.

Brownback then withdrew the measure, acknowledging that it violated rules that require revenue measures to originate in the House, and also violated the balanced budget agreement because it didn’t identify how the lost revenue would be recouped.

Some Democrats cried foul. They said they had been cornered into a vote that made it seem they wanted to perpetuate the politically unpopular marriage tax penalty when they voted to set the bill aside for the same reasons Brownback withdrew it.

Finance Committee Chairman William V. Roth Jr. (R-Del.) said he wanted to end the marriage tax penalty, but attaching it to the $30-billion spending bill for the Treasury, Postal Service and other government operations was not the right way.

“We will take care of the marriage penalty. This will be one of our priorities. But addressing this important issue must be done at the proper time in the proper way,” Roth said.

Conservatives, including Brownback and Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.), who is planning to run for president, have pushed the marriage tax penalty repeal as a pro-family political issue.

The House has not yet acted on a bill to change the marriage tax provision.