Bachelor tax

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A bachelor tax is a punitive tax imposed on unmarried men. As of 2020 , there are no countries that levy this tax[citation needed]. Such measures historically would be instituted as part of a moral panic 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).[1][2][3] Frequently, this would be attached to racial (e.g., as part of Apartheid policies)[2] or nationalistic reasons (as in Fascist Italy).[4][5] 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.[6][7][8]

History[]

Ancient Rome[]

Main article: Lex Papia Poppaea § Promotion of Marriage
See also: Aes uxorium

The Lex Papia Poppaea was introduced in 9 AD 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).

Ottoman Empire[]

Main article: Resm-i mücerred

Resm-i mücerred was a bachelor tax instituted in the Ottoman Empire by at least the 15th century 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[]

In 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]

United States[]

By 1821, the state of Missouri applied a $1 tax on all unmarried men.[12]

The state of 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.[2]

On February 12, 1898, Assemblyman Waller of the New Jersey State Legislature proposed a bachelor tax as a sumptuary tax; however, the bill was not passed.[3]

In 1921, the state of Montana applied a $3 tax on all bachelors in the state.[13] One of them, William Atzinger, refused to pay on sex discrimination grounds.[14] On January 11, 1922, the state supreme court struck down the “bachelor tax” and another poll tax applicable only to men.[15][16] However, it was done so 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).[13]

In the state of California in 1934, 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.[17]

Wyoming briefly considered a $2.50 bachelor tax in 1890, but the motion was tabled.[18]

South Africa[]

In 1919, South Africa imposed a bachelor tax for racial reasons in order to match the white population growth with the black one.[2]

Germany[]

In 1923, the town of Repelen, Germany passed a bachelor tax of 2000 marks per month. However, this law was quickly overturned by federal authorities.[19]

Italy[]

A bachelor tax was levied in Italy from 1927 until the fall of Mussolini in 1943. In a speech given by Benito Mussolini on May 26, 1927, the tax is referenced to have garnered 40 to 50 million lira, but that the purpose of the tax was a race-based pronatalist policy:

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?[20]

By 1936, Italian bachelors paid nearly double their normal income tax rate.[21]

In 1999, the mayor of Vastogirardi, Italy proposed to reinstitute a bachelor tax locally.[22]

Poland[]

In 1946 Poland 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.[8] It formed a part of Communist natalist policies and other taxes on childlessness that were instituted in the Soviet Union[7] and Romania[6] at around the same time.

Soviet Union[]

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.[23]

Romania[]

In 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.[24]

Argentina[]

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.[25]

See also[]

References[]

  • Long, George (1875). "Lex Papia Poppaea". A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities: 691–692.
  • Treggiari, S. (1993). "Roman Marriage : Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian". Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press. Cite journal requires |journal= (help).
  1. ^ Aulus Gellius (1795). The Attic Nights. Printed for J. Johnson ... Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d Barnett, Le Roy (2013, Winter). "The Attempts to Tax Bachelors in Michigan". Historical Society of Michigan, pp. 18-19.
  3. ^ a b "Jersey's Bachelor's Tax." New York Times 13, February, 1898. Print.
  4. ^ J. Pollard, The Fascist Experience in Italy, London, 1998, pp. 78-9.
  5. ^ "Mussolini Imposes Tax on Bachelors." The Evening Independence 10 December 1926. Print.
  6. ^ a b "Romanian Pro-Natalism by Max Rudert on Prezi". prezi.com. Retrieved 2014-09-14.
  7. ^ a b "Tax on childlessness, which existed in the Soviet Union, proposed to be restored" ("Налог на бездетность, существовавший в СССР, предлагают восстановить") http://www.finiz.ru/cfin/tmpl-art/id_art-1054929 (accessed January 3, 2010.)
  8. ^ a b Art. 20 Dekretu z dnia 26 października 1950 r. o podatku dochodowym, j.t. Dz.U. nr 7 z 1957 r., poz. 26.
  9. ^ Coşgel, Metin M. (2005). "Efficiency and Continuity in Public Finance: The Ottoman System of Taxation" (PDF). Int. J. Middle East Stud. 37 (4): 567–586. doi:10.1017/s0020743805052207. S2CID 6972997.
  10. ^ Gumuscu, Osman (2004). "Internal migrations in sixteenth century Anatolia". Journal of Historical Geography. 30 (2): 231–248. doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2003.08.021.
  11. ^ Gibson, Jeremy. The Hearth Tax, Other Later Stuart Tax Lists, and the Association Oath Rolls: FFHS, 1996.
  12. ^ "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.
  13. ^ a b 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)
  14. ^ "Montana Man Refuses to Pay Bachelor Tax." Batavia Daily Times 23 May 1921: Four o'Clock. Print.
  15. ^ “The Tax on Bachelors”, The Social Hygiene Bulletin, v. 8, June 1921, p. 5.
  16. ^ "Montana's Bachelor Tax Declared Void." Milwaukee Sentinel 12 January 1922. Print.
  17. ^ "Consider Plan of Bachelor Tax." Schenectady Gazette 23, April, 1934. Print.
  18. ^ Roddam, Rick (July 9, 2020). "Wyoming's First Tax Controversy: The Proposed Bachelor Tax of 1890". 101.9 KING FM. Retrieved 2021-07-20.
  19. ^ "Foreign News: Bachelor Tax." Times 28 May 1923. Online. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,715545,00.html
  20. ^ Pollard, John (2005). The Fascist Experience in Italy. Routledge. p. 81. ISBN 9781134819041. Retrieved 19 July 2021.
  21. ^ V. De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy 1922-1945, Los Angeles, 1992, p. 44.
  22. ^ "Stanley, Alessandra (16 November 1999). "Vastogirardi Journal; Blissful Bachelorhood and the Shrinking Village". The New York Times. Retrieved 2015-02-11.." New York Times 16 Nov 1999. Online.
  23. ^ Chamie, Joseph; Mirkin, Barry (March 2, 2012). "Childless by Choice". YaleGlobal Online. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  24. ^ ""Celula de bază a societăţii, oficial indivizibilă". Archived from the original on 2015-02-11. Retrieved 2015-02-11.." Jurnalul Național, 13 Mar 2009. Online.
  25. ^ How taxes turned margarine pink, made ships sink, and more strange results

External links[]

Retrieved from ""