The Internal Revenue Service will recognize all legally performed same-sex marriages regardless of the state where the couple happens to live:
WASHINGTON — All legally married same-sex couples will be recognized for federal tax purposes, regardless of whether the state where they live recognizes the marriage, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday.
The change stems from the Supreme Court decision in June that struck down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which found that same-sex couples were entitled to federal benefits.
“Today’s ruling provides certainty and clear, coherent tax-filing guidance for all legally married same-sex couples nationwide,” Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said in a statement. “This ruling also assures legally married same-sex couples that they can move freely throughout the country knowing that their federal filing status will not change.”
The Treasury said that the ruling applies to “all federal tax provisions where marriage is a factor, including filing status, claiming personal and dependency exemptions, taking the standard deduction, employee benefits, contributing to an I.R.A., and claiming the earned income tax credit or child tax credit.”
This would seems to be the most logical way for the Federal Government to deal with this issue in light of the Supreme Court’s decision. If a couple is legally married in one of the thirteen states where same-sex marriage is legal, but then moves to a state where it isn’t there is no logical reason why they should lose their rights under Federal law merely because they happen to now live in a state that doesn’t recognize their marriage. Similarly, a couple that lives in a state that doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage but travels to one that does and is legally married in a state that does, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be entitle to same basket of Federal rights than other Americans are.
Of course, both groups of couples will be faced with something of a tax planning conundrum. While they will be able to filed as a married couple for Federal purposes, they will not be able to do so for state or local purpose in jurisdictions that don’t recognize same-sex marriage. Many states, such as Virginia, base the calculation of state Income Tax liability on numbers borrowed from the Federal forms. So, this means that same-sex couples will be required to prepare two different sets of Federal returns, one for married couples, and one for each of them as single persons for the purposes of preparing the state return. If nothing else, this seems like yet another inequity experienced by gay and lesbian couples in states that don’t recognize same-sex marriage, and yet another argument in favor of nationwide recognition of same-sex marriage.
