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.

当已婚夫妇作为一个单位纳税时，他们可能比收入相同的同居夫妇面临更高或更低的税负。我研究了这种联合所得税对瑞士结婚率的影响，瑞士各州已婚夫妇和同居夫妇之间的税收差别很大。为此，我构建了一个数据集，其中包含居住在瑞士的每个人的社会人口统计和经济变量，并使用家庭级别的信息来识别同居伴侣。使用模拟工具变量方法，我发现联合所得税对 2012 年至 2019 年间结婚的夫妇的结婚率产生了负面影响。这种影响是由没有孩子的家庭和收入分配的低端驱动的。