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graemepyesterday at 9:33 PM1 replyview on HN

Why do we need to push people into the workforce? There are a lot of social benefits to people being stay at home parents (which will be the commonest reason for doing so).

What fraud?

> You will then get the argument of "why should I be taxed more because I'm single"?

You might, but its a dishonest argument. You are taxing households together. You are giving each individual the same amount of tax free income and the same amount in the lower bands.

It is already possible for self employed people to do this by making their spouses a partner or shareholder in the business or similar. This is just extending the same rights to employed people.


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jamespoyesterday at 9:51 PM

Why is taxing households together the correct thing, other than the fact it presumably would improve your personal standard of living (it would also improve mine)? What are you trying to encourage? I could see if you want to encourage families having tax benefits based on children - but universal childcare provision seems more likely to succeed.

And as for not seeing how a tax cut based on 2 people living together could not be abused, you must be very short sighted.

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