Till taxes keep us apart? The impact of the marriage tax on the marriage rate

Abstract

Married couples can face a higher or lower tax burden than cohabitating couples with the same income when the former are taxed as one unit. I study the effect of such joint income taxation on the marriage rate in Switzerland, where tax differentials between married and cohabitating couples vary considerably across cantons. For this purpose, I construct a dataset containing sociodemographic and -economic variables on every individual living in Switzerland and use household-level information to identify cohabitating couples. Using a simulated instrumental variable approach, I find a negative impact of joint income taxation on the marriage rate for couples married between 2012 and 2019. The effect is driven by households without children and from the lower end of the income distribution.