Planning impact on court reversal of doma

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LK2012
Posts: 458
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2012 4:42 pm

Re: Planning impact on court reversal of doma

Post by LK2012 »

manwithnoname wrote:
linguini wrote:
madbrain wrote:
dphmd wrote:I did not see this point previously commented on, but one of the major changes that will accompany this decision is the way the IRS treats same-sex partner health insurance. With DOMA, even if individuals were legally married, the benefits were considered taxable income (with certain exceptions). Now such benefits will be tax-free for legally-married individuals.
I mentioned it in the 5th post in this thread.

I wonder about spousal IRAs for non-working spouses for those couples refiling their federal tax returns for the last 3 years.
Will the spouses now be allowed to contribute to their IRAs for those years, since they were unlawfully prevented from doing so ?
No idea, but I'm guessing the number of married same sex couples living in a single earner household who wanted to contribute to a spousal IRA but were prohibited at the time and care enough to insist on retroactive contributions must be pretty small, so it doesn't have much practical importance. It's an interesting academic question though.
Cant make retroactive contributions to an IRA. Under tax law all contributions for a tax year must be made by April 15 of following year.
Well, we may be a minority within a minority, but I also wish I could contribute to an IRA for my disabled now-spouse for all the previous years (or even just back to 2010) that we were unlawfully prevented from doing this.

It's weird, because I feel very fortunate to now be legally recognized as Married by both the Federal Government and the state of New Jersey after being together for almost 33 years. The benefits of marriage are wonderful. But the more you learn about what was denied to you for so long, the more difficult it is to think about the real financial price of that discrimination. And the NJ legislature is considering a bill that will retroactively recognize civil unions as marriage, so that will take us back to 2007, when we got our NJ civil union. But there are limits to how many benefits will be available retroactively.

Oh, well. We are very grateful that we are in a much better position that folks in many US states, and trying to look only to the good things ahead. This board helps all of us learn to maximize what we can looking forward.
madbrain
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Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2011 5:06 pm
Location: San Jose, California

Re: Planning impact on court reversal of doma

Post by madbrain »

LK2012 wrote: Well, we may be a minority within a minority, but I also wish I could contribute to an IRA for my disabled now-spouse for all the previous years (or even just back to 2010) that we were unlawfully prevented from doing this.

It's weird, because I feel very fortunate to now be legally recognized as Married by both the Federal Government and the state of New Jersey after being together for almost 33 years. The benefits of marriage are wonderful. But the more you learn about what was denied to you for so long, the more difficult it is to think about the real financial price of that discrimination. And the NJ legislature is considering a bill that will retroactively recognize civil unions as marriage, so that will take us back to 2007, when we got our NJ civil union. But there are limits to how many benefits will be available retroactively.

Oh, well. We are very grateful that we are in a much better position that folks in many US states, and trying to look only to the good things ahead. This board helps all of us learn to maximize what we can looking forward.
Congratulations on 33 years together !

NJ "retroactively recognizing civil unions as marriage" seems a little odd. I'm certain it would cause problems for many couples, who were signing up for a civil union without federal recognition. The 1000+ federal benefits also can cause many problems, for example if one partner was collecting social security from a previous (opposite-sex) marriage, they may lose them upon getting remarried.
If NJ really does this, I wonder if the US would go ahead and recognize these civil unions as marriages retroactively, too.

If I were in your shoes, I might inquire with some organizations such as Lambda and ACLU and see if they might be interesting in taking your case. You might find a sympathetic judge. You would probably have a much better case if you were previously married in another jurisdiction (another country or US state), since the US is recognizing same-sex married couples retroactively for the last 3 years due to the Windsor case.

As of about 12 hours ago, my boyfriend of 7.9 years, and California registered domestic partner of 2 years, is now my husband. We went before the county clerk and got the marriage license and civil ceremony in a matter of minutes - they call in an "express marriage", a process that was apparently put in place this past June after the Prop 8 and US vs Windsor rulings. I thought we would have to pick up the license and schedule the civil ceremony for another day - but no. I think even in Vegas, you would have to get the license on a day prior to the ceremony. And of course, no same-sex marriage in Nevada yet.

Since we just got legally married, we are not entitled to anything retroactively from the US. The US is probably not going to recognize domestic partnerships or civil unions as marriages, at least not under the current Congress. More likely, most states will have their bans on same-sex marriages reversed, and this will be a moot point For the last few recalcitrant states that won't, the Supreme Court will likely clear things up for everyone in a proper followup to Loving vs Virginia that will be much broader than US vs Windsor.
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runner26
Posts: 673
Joined: Sat Apr 07, 2007 9:39 pm
Location: California

Re: Planning impact on court reversal of doma

Post by runner26 »

Pat Cain provides link and comments on:

"National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson’s 2013 Annual Report to Congress and Same-Sex Couples."

http://law.scu.edu/same-sex-tax/nationa ... x-couples/
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