> Have there ever been lower taxes for women in any country?

Yes, that is the way it is in India, and it has been for many years now (as long as I remember). Here are the current rates: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_India#Tax_Rates

Also note that the rates are lower for those (of either gender) above 60, and lowest for those above 80.

Very interesting. Not only for that, but it's the first time I've run across the S Asian numbering system. Fascinating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_numbering_system

Michael, I suspect you've been using been using the South Asian numbering system all your life . Surely you write 1,2,3,4,5 as and not I, II, III, IV, V ;)

Point taken; but I was referring to the groupings of digits in large numbers. I'd never seen anything like,

    10,00,00,000

before.

I don't want or need more women to have children, and I have no desire to pay for it.

Why can't we just let in more Chinese immigrants if there's not enough people? China already has plenty of people who want to have more children without me having to pay them to do it.

You agree to pay for it by being born.

For the USA the China way perhaps makes sense. But most countries are primary site of one or more core nations, and the state is created to promote and nourish that nations. The constitution says that. This obviously includes watching how many children are born and making sure there are enough to pass the culture forth.

By the way, this is right because you having children makes us all richer in the long run; you driving around on a nice imported car or having a slightly larger house do not.

>> this is right because you having children makes us all richer in the long run

I disagree. Rampant demography is one of the cause for poverty in many parts of the world. While you can say it makes sense to have 1-2 children to pass to the next generation, having 20 children does nothing good does not make anyone richer in the end. Booms in demography always have detrimental effects, because ressources and economies do not always scale well to deal with it.

>> You agree to pay for it by being born.

I fail to understand how you can "agree" on something by being born, since being born is nothing volontary, while an agreement means there is conscience behind it. Your sentence does not mean anything at all.

We're talking about development, urbanized countries. In those, you having children leads to economic growth and other positive effects in the long run.

There are a lot of places where you agree without actually agreeing. See taxes, citisenship and EULAs.

Even in urbanized countries, I think there is a sweet spot for the number of children that should be desirable vs what would cost you massive problems later on. If you are talking about having 2 children just to renew the generations, I have no problem to follow you on that path, but more is questionnable when you already have massive unemployment, a crumbling debt on the whole of society and an education system which has become the synonym for disaster. Growth comes from solid standards, not from loose ones.

About your second comment: maybe it's just about words, but technically speaking you do not "agree" with your citizenship, you are just born with it. It's like having parents, you do not "agree with it", it's just given. And this is different from EULAs where you do "agree" (since you have to signify your agreement explicitely) while the legality of the EULAs is, in general, highly questionable.

In Spain you pay less taxes for hiring a woman than a man. This also applies when hiring young or old or disabled people. So, you pay max taxes hiring a 30-some man without physical or mental disabilities.

Interesting suggestion, but part of the problem is that a woman who works 5 out of 10 years at $100k pays the top marginal tax rate for those 5 years and no taxes for the next 5. A less ridiculous tax policy might get you that for free.

That's happening in Finland, you earn less you pay taxes progressively less. And we have this thing called parental subsidy or something like that, it is about the money needed feed a child. Only thing this has solved is the possibility to have 20 children in one family. The new problem is that this one religious group is having those large families, and nobody seems to have the time to actually raise those kids.

Individuals (whether man, woman, or 'family') receive tax breaks for having children (ie. dependents) in the United States.