The Marriage Tax Bonus.
When I was a semi-homeless bike touring vagabond, I spent a lot of time hiking, biking, camping, soaking at hot springs, and hanging out in the kewl towns of the West. But I would also stop at a lot of libraries, and even the smallest towns have libraries with internet access (Glenwood Springs, Stanley ID etc). It is nice to be indoors with comfy chairs and climate control. I would look up travel info, but I would also just surf the Internet randomly, and somehow I came across the concept of the Marriage Tax Benefit. If two people are married and one of them makes next to nothing (like me), then if they file together their joint taxes can be thousands less for the wealthier individual. So later when I was spending the winter in Albuquerque; Out of the blue I asked several successful women friends of mine if they would marry me and would quickly add the story of the marriage tax bonus. Well they were pretty stunned to put it mildly. One women came to tears (of joy, well sort of), another said that i should ask more romantically (Yikes)

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