A bachelor tax is a punitive tax imposed on unmarried men. In the modern era, many countries do vary tax rates by marital status, so current references to bachelor taxes are typically implicit rather than explicit; and given the state of tax law is very complicated, as tax accountancy concepts like income splitting can come into play.[1] [2]
Such explicit measures historically would be instituted as part of a moral panic or homophobia due to the important status given to marriage at various times and places (as in Ancient Rome, or in various U.S. state legislatures during the early 20th century).[3] [4] Frequently, this would be attached to racial (e.g., as part of Apartheid policies) or nationalistic reasons (as in Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany).[5] [6]
More recently, bachelor taxes were viewed as part of a general tax on childlessness, which were used frequently by member states of the Warsaw Pact.
| Location | Date(s) | Passed | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ancient Rome | 9 AD |
See also: Aes uxorium. The Lex Papia Poppaea was introduced by emperor Augustus to encourage marriage. In particular, penalties were imposed on those who were celibate, with an exception granted to Vestal Virgins (Ulp. Frag. xvii.1). The law also imposed penalties on married persons who had no children (qui liberos non habent, Gaius, ii.111) from the age of twenty-five to sixty in a man, and from the age of twenty to fifty in a woman. (Tacit. Ann. xv.19). | ||
| Nevers, France | 1223 | Charged a yearly tithe of five solidi to any bachelor as part of a moral panic.[7] [8] | ||
| Ottoman Empire | 15th century | See main article: Resm-i mücerred. Resm-i mücerred was a bachelor tax instituted in the Ottoman Empire in conjunction with the resm-i çift and the resm-i bennâk.[9] Those who fell under the tax were more likely to migrate to other areas. Migrant mücerred were more likely to make their way to a growing town.[10] | ||
| England | 1695 | See main article: Marriage Duty Act 1695. The English parliament passed the Marriage Duty Act 1695, also known as the Registration Tax, which imposed a tax on births, marriages, burials, childless widowers, and bachelors over the age of 25. It was primarily used as a revenue raising mechanism for war on France and as a means of ensuring that proper records were kept by Anglican church officials. The tax was found ineffective and abolished by 1706.[11] [12] | ||
| England | 1798 | An income tax was passed particularly discriminating against bachelors | ||
| United States, Missouri | 1821 | Missouri applied a $1 tax on all unmarried men.[13] By the following year, it was replaced by a poll tax.[14] | ||
| United States, New York | 1825 | A bill was proposed in the New York legislature comparing bachelors with dogs, aiming to replace the then current tax on dogs with one on bachelors instead. | ||
| United States, Connecticut | 1857 | The Connecticut legislature repealed a motion to implement a bachelor tax in the state, under the argument that different methods of taxation already taxed bachelors more heavily. | ||
| United States, Michigan | 1837, 1848, 1849, 1850, 1897, 1901, 1911, 1919, 1935 | Michigan had made repeated attempts to instantiate a bachelor tax. In 1837, state senator Edward D. Ellis attempted to pass such a bill, but the measure failed. In 1848, a petition made it to a House committee, but did not reach the floor. In 1849, another proposal was made in a House committee that did not reach the floor. Again in 1850, another petition reached the House, but did not find a sponsor. During the Civil War it was proposed again, this time as a revenue measure as opposed to a public welfare measure, but again failed to reach the floor. It was then repeatedly brought up in 1897, 1901, 1911, 1919, with the first resulting in counter proposals for a similar tax to be applied to women who reject marriage proposals and the final resulting in arguments that bachelors had a statistically higher rate of delinquency as opposed to other groups. The final proposed bill that also made the floor of the Michigan Congress was in 1935 before it too failed due to economic considerations of the time.[15] | ||
| United States, Wyoming | 1890 | Briefly considered a $2.50 bachelor tax in 1890, but the motion was tabled.[16] | ||
| United States, New Jersey | 1898-02-12 | Assemblyman Waller of the New Jersey State Legislature proposed a bachelor tax as a sumptuary tax; however, the bill was not passed.[17] | ||
| Argentina | 1900 (est.) | A bachelor tax existed in Argentina around 1900. Men who could prove that they had asked a woman to marry them and had been rebuffed were exempt from the tax. In 1900, this gave rise to the phenomenon of "professional lady rejectors", women who for a fee would swear to the authorities that a man had proposed to them and they had refused.[18] | ||
| United States, Delaware | 1907 | Started as a joke before generating much discussion and ultimately being defeated. | ||
| United States, Georgia | 1911 | One assemblyman proposed a $50 yearly tax on bachelors, proposing that the funds should go to schools. | ||
| United States, Minnesota | 1911 | Proposed a $5 yearly levy on bachelors. | ||
| France | 1913 | Proposed not only a large tax on bachelors, but also "spinsters." | ||
| Reichenburg, Germany | 1915 | As part of a progressive taxation measure. | ||
| South Africa | 1919 | Imposed a bachelor tax for racial reasons in order to match the white population growth with the black one. | ||
| United States, Wisconsin | 1921 | Generated frequent moral debate at the time. | ||
| United States, Montana | 1921 | Applied a $3 tax on all bachelors in the state.[19] One of them, William Atzinger, refused to pay on sex discrimination grounds.[20] On January 11, 1922, the state supreme court struck down the “bachelor tax” and another poll tax applicable only to men.[21] [22] However, it was done on the grounds that the Montanan constitution of 1889 did not grant the legislature the power to tax individual persons; and attempts to define it as a policing measure for matters of public health as opposed to a revenue measure were found invalid (and the decision did not reference Atzinger's arguments against the tax on grounds of sex discrimination). | ||
| Germany, Repelen | 1923 | Passed a bachelor tax of 2000 marks per month. However, this law was quickly overturned by federal authorities.[23] | ||
| Italy | 1927 | Levied in Italy from 1927 until the fall of Mussolini in 1943[24] as part of a race-based pronatalist policy. By 1936, Italian bachelors paid nearly double their normal income tax rate.[25] [26] | ||
| Spain | 1928 | Following in the footsteps of Italy, Spain also passed a bachelor tax,[27] only with very few exceptions, including priests as well.[28] | ||
| Germany | 1934 | See main article: Ehestandshilfe. Following in the footsteps of Italy and Spain, but mainly for Nazi party "family values." In particular, it was meant as part of Hitler's "three Ks" policy (German: Kirche, Küche, Kinder or Church, Kitchen, Children) to get women "back into the home."[29] [30] | ||
| United States, California | 1934 | As a response to the low 1933 birth rate in California, Director of Finance Rolland Vandegrift proposed a $5 to $25 bachelor tax, but the measure did not succeed due to economic considerations of the time.[31] | ||
| Finland | 1935 | Increased tax burden for unmarried, childless citizens over the age of 24 from 1935 to 1975. | ||
| France | 1939 | Meant as a proposal to match similar proposals in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. | ||
| Soviet Union | 1941 | A childlessness tax was enforced in the USSR from 1941 to 1992; it was applied to childless men from 25 to 50 years of age and to childless women from 20 to 45 years of age. The tax was income based, taking 6% of the childless person's wages.[32] | ||
| Bulgaria | 1925, 1943, 1968 | Measures to try to introduce a bachelor tax in Bulgaria first began in 1917, where it often took on a pro-eugenic character and part of discussion amongst Bulgarian Fascist party officials.[33] It was formally proposed by 1925, only formally introduced in 1943, but passed only in 1968 only after applying it to both sexes.[34] | ||
| Poland | 1946 | Introduced Bykowe, which was a tax on childlessness that included a tax on those unmarried above 21 years from January 1, 1946 to November 29, 1956. It was later extended to those over 25 years of age until January 1, 1973 when it was repealed.[35] | ||
| Turkey | 1949 | Suggested and passed as a wealth transfer between bachelors to families.[36] | ||
| Romania | 1986 | Some time after the population increase from the decreţei 770 generation, a celibacy tax was instituted. The law continued to be enforced until the Romanian Revolution of 1989.[37] [38] | ||
| Italy, Vastiogirardi | 1999 | The mayor of Vastogirardi, Italy proposed to reinstitute a bachelor tax locally.[39] |
During the 19th century in the United States, calls for a bachelor tax were frequently driven by a moral panic,[7] and the bachelor tax was viewed as a way to reform social ills[15] [17] either because individuals believed that bachelors had a higher rate of delinquency, or because they believed that many bachelors were closeted homosexuals.[40] [41]
The bachelor tax has a long history of being used for race-based pronatalism policies. In the early 20th century, this morphed into a general discussion of "race suicide",[3] [42] and consequently there was much literature supporting racial-based pronatalist policies, typically in the field of eugenics.[43] [33] After such measures were passed in South Africa in an attempt to align white birth rates with black rates,[15] it passed to Benito Mussolini, who explicitly called for it to spread Italian progeny in a speech on May 26, 1927:
Let us be quite clear: what are 40 million Italians compared to 90 million Germans and 200 million Slavs? What are 40 million Italians compared to 40 million Frenchmen, plus 90 million inhabitants of their colonies, or 46 million Englishmen plus 450 million people who live in their colonies?[26]
Thereafter, the idea of the bachelor tax was passed over to Franco's Spain, Nazi Germany, was discussed in Bulgarian Fascist circles, and became a staple of Fascist propaganda in general.[33] [44] [3]
See main article: Tax on childlessness. Many Warsaw Pact countries instituted some form of a bachelor tax, such as the Soviet Union,[32] Poland,[35] Romania,[38] [37] and Bulgaria.[34] Typically, it formed a part of Communist natalist policies, the taxes on childlessness, and family planning policies that were instituted in Communist countries[45] at around the same time in order to increase falling fertility rates.[46] [47]
Today, bachelor taxes have for the most part been superseded by the inclusion of marital status in the tax code. The first distinction in marital status as part of an income tax happened in the U.S. by 1930 after Poe v. Seaborn, where "income-splitting" was allowed in community property states. Therefore, until 1948, tax rates amongst married and bachelors differed based on one's state of residence. This disparity lead to joint-filing status being allowed by U.S. Federal tax law in 1948 to attempt to harmonize the tax code between community property and common law states.[48] After the war, joint filing and marital status began to be incorporated instead of explicit bachelor taxes into the U.S. tax system and soon spread to other tax systems around the world.[49] [2]
According to a 2010 study in the Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, the utility of the tax has been mixed, as analysis of past historical episodes have questioned the reliability of the tax to results in pronatalist outcomes. In Fascist Italy, it was found to be ineffective, as birth and marriage rates actually decreased.[50] In the Soviet Union, the effect on the fertility rate of the policy was likewise inconclusive; and it was also found to be fairly regressive, as it tended to hit rural, poorer bachelors hardest.[34] However, modern day implementations of taxation based on marital status in the U.S. has found a positive correlation with marriage rate.[51]