IRS Flouts the Defense of Marriage Act

Chuck Donovan / June 11, 2010

In a series of three letter rulings – here, here,  and here – issued in May, the Internal Revenue Service has reached conclusions that flout the plain meaning of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

The rulings involve California’s domestic partnership law, which dates to 1999 and has been expanded by the legislature on several occasions over the past decade. The result of the IRS interpretations is that domestic partners in California and several other states will be treated as the equivalent of married couples for the purpose of assessing their federal income tax liability, a substantial benefit.

California first adopted its registered domestic partner (RDP) law in 1999. The law made RDP status available to all same-sex couples and to some heterosexual couples, namely those age 62 or over. The inclusion of older heterosexual couples was designed to extend a set of civil and property rights to seniors who choose to cohabit rather than marry because of the prospective penalty of losing some of their social security benefits. (more…)