When the new tax changes for 2011 and 2012 were signed into law on December 17, one of the items extended was the way to get rid of the so called “marriage tax penalty” which would have expired at the end of 2010. Prior to the Bush Tax Cuts, married people frequently paid more in taxes than their single counterparts. This was fixed by equalizing the standard deduction between married couples and singles and also equalizing the top of the 15% tax bracket. So now the marriage tax penalty is gone until 2013, and we will see what happens then.