A private employer decides to offer benefits to domestic partners.
But public law requires that the domestic partner pay taxes on the benefits, unlike the spouses of straights who receive exactly the same benefits.
From the Washington Post:
Early in 2004, after nearly two years in a committed relationship, Dan It also stipulates that “spouse” refers “only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” The law requires that both these definitions be used “in determining the meaning of any Act of Congress.” Thus, same-sex couples, no matter what the states do, will remain
Jessup added his partner to his health insurance, as his employer, the big Wall
Street firm J.P. Morgan, allows…
But there was shock in store for the 39-year-old worker in Morgan’s
commercial banking division in Indianapolis: His taxes took a big jump…
Under federal law, any portion of an employer-paid insurance premium
that goes for coverage for a domestic partner is treated as taxable income to
the employee. The employee also may not make any payments for partner coverage, such as premiums under a “cafeteria” benefit plan, with pretax
dollars…
…the rules were written into law by Congress…
“A man and a woman who have not officially gotten married are in the
same boat,”…
Opposite-sex couples, of course, have the option of getting married.
Except in Massachusetts, same-sex couples do not. Even if they did, it wouldn’t
help with the tax treatment.
The Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, defines marriage for the purposes of federal law as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husban and wife.”
unable to get federal-tax-free health insurance for one partner through the
other’s employer. A 1997 study by the General Accounting Office (now known as
the Government Accountability Office) found 1,049 federal laws in which
marital status is a factor. They range from the obvious, such as those
concerning joint tax returns, to the obscure but potentially important for
certain individuals, such as in determining who gets life insurance proceeds
when a federal government worker dies without specifying a
beneficiary.
Equal protection of the laws my heine.
It’s not Christians who are persecuted.
We are doing the persecution (though not all of us agree with it).
