Tax Day and the LGBT Party
There has been much argument about taxes lately. Yesterday, the Tea Party Express brought some of this talk to the Boston Common, just outside my office window.
I believe that paying taxes is a responsibility that comes with being an American citizen. We must share the costs of maintaining and improving our country’s infrastructure and security, and of providing the services that benefit all of us. But I also believe that the tax system must be administered fairly, and without discrimination.
So, as another tax day rolls around, I find myself reflecting on the particular relationship the LGBT community has to paying taxes.
One of the most blatant forms of tax discrimination comes in the federal government’s refusal to acknowledge the legal marriages of same-sex couples.
We hear these stories everyday.
Melba Abreu and Beatrice Hernandez (pictured above) - who married in Massachusetts in 2004 - have since paid over $25,000 additional in federal taxes than they would have if they were a heterosexual couple.
Mary Bowe-Shulman was finally able to add her spouse Dorene - two-time cancer survivor and stay-at-home mom to the couple’s two girls – to her family health insurance plan when the couple married six years ago, but the federal government taxes the value of that insurance. “It was as if I had added a total stranger to my insurance, not my spouse,” says Mary. “My [heterosexual] married colleagues just aren’t penalized in the same way.”
Steve Kleinedler movingly talks about how state, family and community recognition of his marriage provided him some measure of peace and dignity as he grieved the loss of his spouse last year. But he also recalls the frustration and confusion of dealing with the federal government’s lack of respect: “It was particularly galling filing taxes each year and having to check off ‘single.’ Each time I felt like I was committing perjury because we were in fact legally married.”
GLAD is fighting to end this discrimination, as we challenge the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in federal court. I’m excited, because I know we have some of the best legal minds in the country working on this argument - and because I know we’re right.
I also know that we can – and do – win these battles. GLAD’s recent victory in U.S. Tax Court affirmed the right of transgender individuals to deduct legitimate medical costs related to transition. The decision treats our plaintiff Rhiannon O’Donnabhain and other transgender citizens the way they deserve to be treated—like any hard-working American taxpayer with medical expenses. As Rhiannon says, “We deserve respect, equal treatment for our medical care, and fair treatment by our government.”
Of course there are many other examples of discrimination against LGBT people, and we have many other battles to fight. But as I file my own federal taxes this year, knowing that GLAD and others are challenging – and defeating - discrimination gives me hope that one day everyone in the LGBT community will receive the fair treatment by our government we all deserve.