ABC Taxes, Tips & Tools

As of this date, some-when mid 2010, same sex cou­ples who are mar­ried under state law can not file with a “mar­ried” sta­tus on their fed­eral income tax return.  They can’t even fol­low com­mu­nity prop­erty rules, such as those that exist in Cal­i­for­nia.  Each per­son must report their own income result­ing from ser­vices they per­son­ally provided.

How­ever a dis­trict court recently inval­i­dated a fed­eral law that defined mar­riage as a union between a man and a woman and this rul­ing is sure to be appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court.

In Con­necti­cut, Iowa, Mass­a­chu­setts, New Hamp­shire, Ver­mont, and Wash­ing­ton, D.C., mar­riages for same-sex cou­ples are legal and cur­rently per­formed; the Coquille Indian Tribe in Ore­gon also grants same-sex mar­riage. In Cal­i­for­nia, same-sex mar­riages were per­formed between June 16, 2008, and Novem­ber 4, 2008. Today, all same-sex unions are given the ben­e­fits of mar­riage under Cal­i­for­nia law, although only those per­formed as mar­riages before Novem­ber 5, 2008, retain the des­ig­na­tion “mar­riage”, the rest are called “domes­tic part­ners”.  States which rec­og­nize same-sex mar­riage but do not grant same-sex mar­riage licenses: New York, Rhode Island, and Maryland.

In a sep­a­rate appeals case, on August 4, 2010 the US Dis­trict Court over­turned California’s Propo­si­tion 8, which banned gay mar­riage.  An appeal of the rul­ing is expected and this case may also go all the way to the Supreme Court.

If you are a same sex cou­ple right now in a state which rec­og­nizes your union as mar­riage, and IF you could file your fed­eral tax return as mar­ried & it would save you tax, what should you do?  File a pro­tec­tive claim of refund on Form 1040-x.  The IRS should hold these claims in abeyance until there is a final deci­sion in (Gill v. OPM D,C., Mass.).

As always, small busi­ness ser­vices and tax­a­tion are our busi­ness.  If you need help Please give Art & Busi­ness Con­sult­ing a call.  We would love to engage you as a client.

The usual dis­claimers: Although ABC has made every effort to insure the accu­racy of Taxes, Tips and Tools, mis­in­for­ma­tion, dis­in­for­ma­tion, changes, mis­takes, typos and hack­ers hap­pen, there­fore Art & Busi­ness Con­sult­ing LLC takes no respon­si­bil­ity for any action taken or results based on the infor­ma­tion sup­plied here in. The con­tent of this blog gen­er­ally applies to busi­ness and indi­vid­ual tax­a­tion in the United States of Amer­ica.  Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice Cir­cu­lar 230 Dis­clo­sure:  As pro­vided for in Trea­sury reg­u­la­tions, advice (if any) relat­ing to fed­eral taxes that is con­tained in this com­mu­ni­ca­tion (includ­ing attach­ments) is not intended or writ­ten to be used, and can­not be used for the pur­pose of (1) avoid­ing penal­ties under the Inter­nal Rev­enue Code or (2) pro­mot­ing, mar­ket­ing or rec­om­mend­ing to another party any plan or arrange­ment address herein.  Art & Busi­ness Con­sult­ing LLC cur­rently does not have a cer­ti­fied pub­lic accoun­tant, human resource spe­cial­ist, finan­cial plan adviser or an attor­ney on staff; this infor­ma­tion is purely for edu­ca­tional pur­poses and not to be con­strued as legal or finan­cial advice. Art & Busi­ness Con­sult­ing LLC and its employ­ees, mem­bers and asso­ciates are not engage to prac­tice law; you always should dis­cuss legal mat­ters with your attor­ney before talk­ing to any­one else.