This might end up being one of those "be careful what you wish for" moments, but the
Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Treasury announced yesterday that they will recognize all same-sex married couples for federal tax purposes, regardless if they live in a marriage inequality state:
The decision, which was prompted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, marks the latest political progress for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
Prior to this spring, the Internal Revenue Service did not recognize same-sex married couples pursuant to section 3 of DOMA. Once DOMA was overturned in June, the question became: What about same-sex married couples who moved to a state that didn’t recognize their marriage (a couple married in Massachusetts who moved to Arkansas, for example)?
Thursday’s ruling by Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew provides a uniform policy for the IRS; the state of celebration -- where the wedding took place -- now trumps the state of residency when it comes to federal tax status for same-sex married couples.
Prior to this year, one of the headaches of being a married gay man in Iowa was that we had to do two sets of taxes: married for Iowa taxes and single for federal taxes. Now it will be streamlined for us, which was assumed. But the script will be flipped for
couples who've come from other states here to get gay-married and then returned to their own states.
