Just remember. . . You don't want to be "that Guy" who's not old. . . Just too old to be in the club picking up 20-somethings.

That said, I'm 30 (still single) and will not worry about marriage anytime soon.

 

if you want to bring happiness into it, I'd bet that the happy married people are much much happier than the happy never-married people.

 

Can you explain how simply getting married increases somebody's happiness?

 

I still havn't seen a happily married couple in my life. They all talk like it but when you go over their house hang out with them and your girlfriend hear about the i can't she'ss nagging he's an a$$ comments well that sort of kills all there talk.

 

Actually, we would still get tax breaks because we'd be paying for childcare and that's deductible. But my point is that, in my situation, with a single-income family, we pay little to no taxes. We made just over $45K in 2003 (working eight months) and only paid 4% taxes, I think. I'll pay a lot more in taxes (as an actual dollar figure) this coming year since I'll actually work the full year through, but in the end, I'll still get money back. I always do.

The tax break for my daughter was $3100 this year. It's not a tax BREAK, specifically - it's an actual cash amount that is given to me. I don't have to pay $3100 in taxes to get $3100 as a refund because of my daughter. I don't need the refund to make it worth it but it seems logical to me to make dependants tax deductible. Ain't it lovely? As a further note, you can certainly have a child any time you want - no one is stopping you. They just tend to cost more than $3100 a year...so I'm still losing money on the whole thing.

Why should you have to pay more taxes than me? Because I'm supporting someone that doesn't contribute financially. I'm making money for one person but spending it on three. You're not (at least, you're not forced to). You can "afford" to do it. You can buy smaller cars, smaller houses/apartments, eat less food, etc, etc, than I can - you can live on a lot less and still have the same kind of lifestyle that I do.

Why do you have to pay for my charity donation? Remember, I'm not actually MAKING money by donating to charity - I'm just not paying as much. I still "lost" in terms of dollars and cents when I gave to charity. Seems to me that I'm the one that paid, not you. Of course, my intangible benefits for donating are significant...

Bottom line - you're looking at how little tax I pay. What you're forgetting is how much I pay out of my pocket in day-to-day living. A wife and child cost money, more than having no one at home. So while I pay less for taxes, I probably pay about as much as you in actual dollars in the end.

 

Then you're spending time with the wrong people.

By the same token, I've seen a lot of unhappy unmarried couples. Like anything, there is the good and the bad. I'm just around a lot of the good, I guess. I've met the bad - my Dad's been married twice, both unhappily (in the end). But I've also met the good - I know a few couples that are over the 50 year mark in their marriages and a lot in the 30-40 year range.

Sure, couples have disagreements and clashes, married or not. That's not the point. The point is that overall happiness is definitely possible in a marriage. Getting married doesn't "remove" all problems, it just seems to allow you to stick 'em out and work through them a little better.

Bottom line - just because you haven't met 'em doesn't mean they don't exist.

 

I don't mean to turn this into a tax deduction arguement, because I don't care to much about marriage tax deductions but this arguement is


Just because someone is married and has children should not mean that others should have to make sacrifices so the married couple can keep the lifestyle they are accustomed to. Just because someone has a kid, the rest of the world should NOT be forced to choose a smaller car or house when they guy with the kid gets a tax break and keeps his S2000.

Having kids is not some pious thing that needs to be rewarded by the state with huge tax breaks intended to buy votes in the next election. Any 13 year old in the ghetto can have a kid, but only people who can afford to take care of them should make the decision to have one. The suggestion that "Hey I will have kids and take your money if you don't have them to keep up my lifestyle because you can live with less" is ludacris. Most people who have them realize there are thing they may have to give up, not dig into someone elses pocket to keep.

I realize that gets way off the topic off this thread and will bring all kinds of wrath but could not ignore the bait. I don't know if that is what Jonboy really MEANS, that may not be what he intended, it was just worded that poorly.

Read the quote, it smacks of pure socialism and I don't live on a kibutz. I will chip in for schools and to help keep somebody's kid clothed and fed, but keeping up someones "lifestyle" at my expense is pure nonsense.

 

Oh yeah, but I still give marriage the

 

"simply getting married" doesn't increase someone's happiness. What I'm saying is that people who are happy AND married, seem happier than people who are generally happy and not married. You don't have to be married to be happy, but the things that you get from a happy marriage are VERY effective at making someone feel happy a good deal of the time. I'm not going to list all the ways being married can make you happy, nor will I argue whether happy married people really are happier. I feel that it's true, but if someone else doesn't, fine.

 

What I meant was that, if we set a standard of living, it takes more money for me to do it than for a single guy to do it. This is solely based on the fact that I have a family and he does not. I was not suggesting that everyone else make less money or make do with less in their life for my benefit.

I don't have an S2000, either - I drive a '98 Honda Accord.

$3100 isn't chump change but it isn't a "huge" tax break, either. That's what I got for my daughter this year.

You get tax breaks for owning a home. How is that any different than having a kid, in the eyes of everyone else that doesn't own a home? You make more money than the guy that pays $500 a month in rent because he can't afford the $1000 a month mortgage, yet you still get to deduct all of your interest and such.

If you pick on "family tax breaks", start pointing at all the others. People that have enough money to invest but actually lose occasionally. Whoopee - they gambled and lost. Why should that be tax deductible? Their choice - their fault. Houses are a choice, not a requirement - you can find other living quarters more cheaply, in many places. Why should houses be a write-off? Why can't I write off part of my rent as a living expense? Consider that we all get basic write-offs for living expenses but you get more because you make enough to own a house?

Seriously, none of it is "fair" to everyone. But everyone has a shot of getting tax breaks not everyone else gets.

I still fail to see how I am digging into a single person's pocket by having a family and paying less taxes. As I pointed out, in the end, we're probably left with the same amount of "free" cash in the end. Also note that I am giving substantially to charity and he is not, which is giving me an extra tax break, contributing to my extremely low tax burden.

Bottom line - I don't know how keeping up MY lifestyle became YOUR job or how you inferred that I was saying it. My lifestyle is probably significantly lower than most guys on here that make the money I do (but are single). And that's with the "huge" tax breaks I get.

For the record, in my tax bracket, the amount of tax that a single guy pays compared to me doesn't even come close to what I spend on medical insurance for my wife and daughter, much less the other expenses of life. The difference isn't THAT big (for now).