A Massachusetts Federal District Court Judge has ruled that key parts of DoMA, including the part that denies same sex married couples the ability to file a joint tax return to be unconstitutional.
Summary of the case:
Interesting. Will the defendants appeal, I wonder.
As the defendants were all departments and/or agencies representing the United States of America, for all intents and purposes, they have no choice but to appeal as the court ruled that the guts of a federal statute is unconstitutional..... and.... as that statute appears to have considerable support by the voting population, the government would have to appeal.
MANAGEMENT? But a footnote says
2 Defendants in this action are the Office of Personnel Management; the United States Postal Service; John E. Potter, in his official capacity as the Postmaster General of the United States of America; Michael J. Astrue, in his official capacity as the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration; Eric H. Holder, Jr., in his individual capacity as the United States Attorney General; and the United States of America. Hereinafter, this court collectively refers to the Defendants as ?the government.?It's strange why the postmaster general is named as a defendant.
So maybe whether or not they will appeal depends on what the defendants think of ruling, and also perhaps on calculations of how it will affect the November elections. I can't speculate on what they will do, and have no idea what will happen.
If same-sex couples were to have social security survivorship benefits, any idea how much that might cost?
Look at page 6 of the original memo. One of the plaintiffs works for the PO and wants to add her wife to her employer health coverage, which she could do if they were of different genders.
They'll certainly appeal. The question is whether the circuit court or SCOTUS will accept the appeal.
R's, John
Because one of the plaintiffs is a postal worker, and USPS denied spousal benefits to her wife. Fom the decision: "Plaintiff Nancy Gill, an employee of the United States Postal Service, seeks to add her spouse, Marcelle Letourneau, as a beneficiary under Ms. Gill¹s existing self and family enrollment in the FEHB, to add Ms. Letourneau to FEDVIP, and to use her flexible spending account for Ms. Letourneau¹s medical expenses." [p. 7]
Not necessarily. There are tactical considerations. At the moment the case applies only to MA residents. If they appeal and lose, it then applies to the entire Circuit. They may see a case elsewhere in the system that they think would be better. Sometimes they also seek input from affected agencies. I think that the agencies would want to try to get this mess to the Supremes as quickly as possible, because two sets of rules is an administrative nightmare, even if it applies to only one state. I remember problems from my IRS days dealing with much narrower issues when there were split Circuits.
I think they will appeal since the President has publicly called for repeal of the law. I don't see that they have a choice politically.
Phil Marti
Circuit courts don't have a choice.
As an aside, in preparing tax returns for one of my same sex (female) married couples, the parents of twins (artificial insemination), filed Federal returns as single people, each claiming one of the children. The same status was claimed on their NJ tax returns. It didn't take long for NJ to audit, and change, the return to a Married/CU Couple filing jointly. Apparently, they have a set up which allows them to detect the status no matter how it is claimed with IRS. It seems to me that, when it comes to income tax, many of these couples might choose to remain single!!-:) Of course, they might then not benefit from other important features which that status creates.
Of course, if they were able to file a joint Federal tax return, preparation would be a much simpler process. (mo)
Another aside, in this case, the mother of the children had her last name changed to that of her partner.
According to
This doesn't make sense. If the president wants the same benefits for same-sex couples then he would be happy with the court's decision and would not appeal.
According to
But you need to factor in the difference between collecting a survivor benefit vs. benefits based on your own earnings. My guess is that SSMC (same sex married couples) will see significantly fewer cases than average where survivor benefits are actually paid out, as I imagine in the vast majority that both spouses are working full-time throughout most of their lives.
-Mark Bole
Make perfect sense. If he doesn't appeal then it is only in effect in a very small area. If he appeals and wins at the next level, it is for a wider area and then if the Supremes take it (and agree.. not necessarily a slam dunk) then it is effectively repealed.
I don't care that the ruling was technically correct. This was a bonehead move by the plaintiffs - a lose-lose situation. Their lawyer should be [shot or sued - tkae your pick] for malpractice.
The so-called "marriage penalty" only applies in certain circumstances, I don't even think you can say it applies more often than not.
-Mark Bole
The marriage penalty doesn't hurt everyone - just those couples where both partners make about the same amount of money.
But that's just one aspect of marriage. One news show recently said that there are about 11,000 "benefits" that married couples get under federal law, that non-married couples don't. That can more than offset any marriage penalty.
Plus, gay couples want to be treated like everyone else. If that means paying a bit more tax, it is worth it to most. And to the rest, they don't have to get married, just like everyone else.
In the Background section of the decision you find this:
In January 1997, the General Accounting Office issued a report clarifying the scope of DOMA?s effect. It concluded that DOMA implicated at least 1,049 federal laws, including those related to entitlement programs, such as Social Security, health benefits and taxation, which are at issue in this action.26 A follow-up study conducted in 2004 found that 1,138 federal laws tied benefits, protections, rights, or responsibilities to marital status.27
Some would, some wouldn't, just like anybody else, it depends on income.
Even the couple where only one of them worked and wanted her partner to get insurance benefits? Just how did they lose? Benefit increased, taxes decreased.
The lawyer represents her clients, not some hypothetical members of a group.
Seth
And here's a link that says it doesn't.
Phil Marti
This is interesting. So are you saying that if both spouses made 100k a year (adjusted for inflation) for the last 30 years, then when one of them dies, the other would not get any survivorship benefits? I didn't see this rule anywhere, but it makes sense.
And if they had kids (for example, adopted kids, kids from surrogate mother, etc)? From the SSA website
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