| | Prof. Machan: interesting questions, but all theoretical. In a strongly libertarian society, such questions frame their own answers. As you say, one could have any kind of marriage contract.
However, the reality of our society is far more complicated in very material consequences.
I am completing a course in Individual Tax Preparation sponsored by Jackson Hewitt. I am suffering through this, believe me, so I am not going to cite specifics. However, after 21 chapters of tax laws, I assure you that at LEAST six different kinds of impacts result from being married or not.
The usual deductions and exemptions we all know are easy enough. But, they do exist.
Moreover, for IRA and Roth IRA, it makes a difference who is married to whom under law. Also for healthcare plan deductions it makes a difference if your (legal) spouse is covered by their own qualified healthcare plan.
For deductions of interest paid on student loans, it makes a difference. Two different kinds of education credits apply. For your children - legal children, not the kids of your live-in girl friend - you can take one or the other for each: one child, one kind of education credit; the other gets the lesser choice. Three kids? Someone goes without...
For childcare tax credits, family matters. Children and siblings and their descendants can be deducted - nieces and nephews; grandchildren. There it stops: no great grand niece of a cousin is allowed.
We had a case of childcare credit where the grandmother took her grandchild for one credit and then herself was claimed (properly) by her own father for different kind of care credit.
Now, you can say that all of this taxation is malarky (or "mal-archy") and I agree, but it is real, here and now. Theoretical claims of universality must wait for the realization of that theoretical society.
In no example in the last eight weeks have any couples been of the same gender. They are all either married under law or they are not. We do not argue who is "married." If the client says they are married, then they are. That said, we have a lot of material on due diligence. It only takes a question or two to reveal a ruse. But, ultimately, the tax preparer only documents what they found and what they advised and the burden of proof rests with the individual until the IRS decides to intervene.
Again, in a perfect world, the IRS would not exist. As it does exist, the theoretical claims must be followed for their instantiations and realizations.
Beyond taxation, adoptions, inheritances, and end-of-life questions all beg our attention.
Luke opened a door: given, as you would allow, that three people can be "married" what happens when two of them disagree on the end-of-life problems faced by the third? Would it remain for the courts (arbitration agencies) to decide while an injustice unfolds? Do any guidelines exist here and now for something like that?
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