Talk:Bachelor tax

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https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/11/23/bachelor-tax/

Historical Examples

Location Date(s) Passed Comment
Ancient Rome 9 AD Yes Template:Main

Template:See also 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).[1]

Nevers, France 1223 Yes Charged a yearly tithe of five solidi to any bachelor as part of a moral panic.[2][3]
Ottoman Empire 15th century Yes Template:Main

Resm-i mücerred was a bachelor tax instituted in the Ottoman Empire in conjunction with the resm-i çift and the resm-i bennâk.[4] 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.[5]

England 1695 Yes Template:Main

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.[6][7][3][1]

England 1798 Yes An income tax was passed particularly discriminating against bachelors [7][3]
United States, Missouri 1821 Yes Missouri applied a $1 tax on all unmarried men.[8] By the following year, it was replaced by a poll tax.[9]
United States, New York 1825 No 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.[1]
United States, Connecticut 1857 No The Connecticut legislature repealed a motion to implement a bachelor tax in the state, under the argument that different methods of taxation already taxed bachelors more heavily.[1]
United States, Michigan 1837, 1848, 1849, 1850, 1897, 1901, 1911, 1919, 1935 No 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.[10]
United States, Wyoming 1890 No Briefly considered a $2.50 bachelor tax in 1890, but the motion was tabled.[11]
United States, New Jersey 1898-02-12 No Assemblyman Waller of the New Jersey State Legislature proposed a bachelor tax as a sumptuary tax; however, the bill was not passed.[12]
Argentina 1900 (est.) Yes 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.[13][1]
United States, Delaware 1907 No Started as a joke before generating much discussion and ultimately being defeated.[1]
United States, Georgia 1911 No One assemblyman proposed a $50 yearly tax on bachelors, proposing that the funds should go to schools.[1]
United States, Minnesota 1911 No Proposed a $5 yearly levy on bachelors.[1]
France 1913 No Proposed not only a large tax on bachelors, but also "spinsters."[1]
Reichenburg, Germany 1915 Yes As part of a progressive taxation measure.[1]
South Africa 1919 Yes Imposed a bachelor tax for racial reasons in order to match the white population growth with the black one.[10]
United States, Wisconsin 1921 No Generated frequent moral debate at the time.[1]
United States, Montana 1921 Yes Applied a $3 tax on all bachelors in the state.[14] One of them, William Atzinger, refused to pay on sex discrimination grounds.[15] On January 11, 1922, the state supreme court struck down the “bachelor tax” and another poll tax applicable only to men.[16][17] 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).[14]
Germany, Repelen 1923 Yes Passed a bachelor tax of 2000 marks per month. However, this law was quickly overturned by federal authorities.[18]
Italy 1927 Yes Levied in Italy from 1927 until the fall of Mussolini in 1943[19] as part of a race-based pronatalist policy. By 1936, Italian bachelors paid nearly double their normal income tax rate.[20][21][1]
Spain 1928 Yes Following in the footsteps of Italy, Spain also passed a bachelor tax,[22] only with very few exceptions, including priests as well.[23]
Germany 1934 Yes Template:Main

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 (Template:Lang or Church, Kitchen, Children) to get women "back into the home."[1][24][25]

United States, California 1934 No As a response to the low 1933 birth rate in California, minister of Finance Roland Vandegrift proposed a $5 to $25 bachelor tax, but the measure did not succeed due to economic considerations of the time.[26]
Finland 1935 Yes Template:Main

Increased tax burden for unmarried, childless citizens over the age of 24 from 1935 to 1975.

France 1939 No Meant as a proposal to match similar proposals in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.[1]
Soviet Union 1941 Yes 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.[27]
Bulgaria 1925, 1943, 1968 Yes 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.[28] It was formally proposed by 1925,[1] only formally introduced in 1943, but passed only in 1968 only after applying it to both sexes.[29]
Poland 1946 Yes 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.[30]
Turkey 1949 Yes Suggested and passed as a wealth transfer between bachelors to families.[31]
Romania 1986 Yes 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.[32][33]
Italy, Vastiogirardi 1999 No The mayor of Vastogirardi, Italy proposed to reinstitute a bachelor tax locally.[34]
  1. 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named amazingSource
  2. Template:Cite news
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 Template:Cite book
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  5. Template:Cite journal
  6. Gibson, Jeremy. The Hearth Tax, Other Later Stuart Tax Lists, and the Association Oath Rolls: FFHS, 1996.
  7. 7.0 7.1 Template:Cite book
  8. "A copy of Assessor’s General alphabetical lists of Taxable property in Boone county Mo for the year 1821". Boone County, O. Harris Sheriff & Collector. Received auditors office, August 2nd, 1821.
  9. Template:Cite web
  10. 10.0 10.1 Barnett, Le Roy (2013, Winter). "The Attempts to Tax Bachelors in Michigan". Historical Society of Michigan, pp. 18-19.
  11. Template:Cite web
  12. "Jersey's Bachelor's Tax." New York Times. 13 February 1898.
  13. How taxes turned margarine pink, made ships sink, and more strange results
  14. 14.0 14.1 STATE EX REL. PIERCE ET AL., APPELLANTS, v. GOWDY, COUNTY TREASURER, RESPONDENT, 62 Mont. 119; 203 P. 1115; 1922 Mont. LEXIS 5 (Montana Supreme Court 1922)
  15. Template:Cite news
  16. “The Tax on Bachelors”, The Social Hygiene Bulletin, v. 8, June 1921, p. 5.
  17. "Montana's Bachelor Tax Declared Void." Milwaukee Sentinel. 12 January 1922.
  18. Template:Cite web
  19. Template:Cite news
  20. V. De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy 1922-1945, Los Angeles, 1992, p. 44.
  21. Template:Cite book
  22. Template:Cite news
  23. Template:Cite news
  24. Schmitz-Berning, p. 122.
  25. Friedrich Hartmannsgruber, Die Regierung Hitler volume 3 1936, Munich: Oldenbourg, 2002, Template:ISBN, p. 17 Template:In lang
  26. "Consider Plan of Bachelor Tax." Schenectady Gazette. 23 April 1934.
  27. Template:Cite web
  28. Template:Cite news
  29. Template:Cite news
  30. Art. 20 Dekretu z dnia 26 października 1950 r. o podatku dochodowym, j.t. Dz.U. nr 7 z 1957 r., poz. 26.
  31. Template:Cite news
  32. "Template:Cite web." Jurnalul Național, 13 Mar 2009. Online.
  33. Template:Cite web
  34. "Template:Cite news." New York Times. 16 November 1999.