In the Washington Post article dated May 16, 2010, “Conservative thinkers tout three innovative and controversial proposals,” Robert Stein, who served as deputy assistant secretary for macroeconomic analysis in George W. Bush‘s administration, suggests that the tax code benefits retirees who didn’t have children. His theory is that those individuals who marry and have children contribute more to the Social Security and Medicare systems because their children contribute to the system also. More “buck for the bang” as it were…
Personally, I thought that what each individual pays into the Social Security benefits them as to the return. Just because you as a parent have one or more kids paying into the system does not make you any more worthy. While it might look good now to have more people paying into the system, those individuals are just as likely to avail themselves of the retirement benefits in the future as anyone else.
As a parent with children, one already gets significantly more Federal tax breaks than does a single filer. It was always a quasi bone of contention with one of my military coworkers, who had four children, that he paid next to no Federal taxes after all his deductions while I, with no kids, have paid taxes for 32 years…allowed to take only the standard deduction. To take it one step further, non-parents have no children burdening the public school system which makes me wonder even more why there should be so many tax allowances for having children. I am not really complaining but saying that childless taxpayers who put less of a strain on and contribute more to the public well should pay more into Social Security and Medicare is a bit of a stretch.
I am am no tax specialist but to simplify what Mr. Stein suggests which is to up the child tax credit from approximately $1500 per year to $4000, here is how I would have made out on my Federal tax return in 2008 if I had had four children. Could I really have had the government pay me $8000? Just think, if I had ten kids, I could get paid $80,000 a year by the government. What a concept, eh? Right…the tax burden is just reduced to nothing.
| File Status | Deduction for Children | Tax Burden |
| No Children | $0.00 | $8,000.00 |
| 4 Children (Current System) | $1,500.00 | $2,000.00 |
| 4 Children (Proposed System) | $16,000.00 | -$8,000.00 |