Comments on: Liveblogging: the marriage cases

By: Isab

Isab — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 03:30:00 +0000

I am sympathetic to your tax situation, but here is what led to my confusion. When you talk about “your” tax liability above, you use the words “I’ll” and “My”. This confused me as to your understanding of the rules for married filers. When my spouse and I talk about our tax return, we use the words “We” and “our” which reflects the joint nature of our collective tax liability.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 04:04:16 +0000

I understand this perfectly, Isab. But for prior years, if it benefits me (unlikely!), I may be able to re-submit. The IRS is not likely to force people to amend their returns. Though you never know if they can squeeze more money out of me.

I realize I have no choice moving forward.

Unfortunately, I understand taxes all too well. I am unfortunate enough to earn money. The Majority of Californians marched to the polls last year to raise my taxes by a point–while not raising the taxes for 99.5% of the taxpayers. Given that I have to pay an extra $17,000 under this law–retroactively–I would rather that CA Prop 30 have been struck down than CA Prop 8.

By: Isab

Isab — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 01:38:00 +0000

“I’m in a same-sex marriage in CA (one of the 12,000 couples whose marriage was allowed to stand despite proposition 8.)

Any guesses as to whether I’ll be able to refile Federal tax returns as “married” (of course, only if it comes out in my favor) for the years where my marriage wasn’t recognized Federally?”

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that married people get a choice under the federal tax code to file as either “married” or “single” based on which one yields the least tax liability.

Nothing could be further from the truth. When you are married, your taxes can be filed two ways. Either married filing jointly, or married filing separately. There must be agreement. Both members have to use the same filing category.
Each of these usually yields a generally higher tax liability than if a two earner married couple could each file as a single tax payer on their individual income.

I suspect there is going to be a lot of screaming when April 15th rolls around again.

By: John Burgess

John Burgess — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 00:59:28 +0000

@Malcolm: Oh, gee! And here I was, thinking that the Bill of Rights and the Supreme Court (even if not perfect) were the best things to happen to civilization…

By: Malcolm

Malcolm — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 22:07:41 +0000

I hope people will now understand why we in Australia have consistently resisted the efforts of politicians to force on us a Bill of Rights (apart, of course, from the original one of 1689). Experience shows that it allows unelected judges to push their own political opinions, overruling the plain meaning of the law, the will of the people, and common morality.
The Supreme Court of the United States has long been a bleeding scandal in the English-speaking world, and one we have done our best to avoid.

By: Walter Olson

Walter Olson — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 17:29:24 +0000

Don't know, and it may depend on IRS policy guidance, which may well turn out to allow amended filing for years when there was a valid state marriage. I've already linked it when it came out, but here is one of my relatively rare excursions into print about my personal stake in the issue. I may stand to benefit (like Edith Windsor) from elimination of the federal tax on spousal inheritance at death; in various other respects, such as computation of assets for purposes of university tuition or nursing-home outlays, I expect the potential impact will be negative, but will cheerfully accept that.

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 16:54:51 +0000

I’m in a same-sex marriage in CA (one of the 12,000 couples whose marriage was allowed to stand despite proposition 8.)

Any guesses as to whether I’ll be able to refile Federal tax returns as “married” (of course, only if it comes out in my favor) for the years where my marriage wasn’t recognized Federally?