Income Tax Reform

I just finished reading Martha Burk's piece for AlterNet titled "How the Income Tax System Shortchanges Women", and wanted to share a piece with you. In the article she outlines five ways to make income taxes fairer. I think this would be a wonderful idea:

Get marital status out of the tax code. The basic tax-paying unit in the U.S. system is the "household" -- defined as married heterosexual couples or single individuals. We should redefine the tax unit to follow the model used in almost all other industrialized nations: Each taxpayer is treated as an individual regardless of household type. This would eliminate both the marriage penalty and the marriage bonus, and at the same time would no longer exclude gay or cohabiting couples.