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Tax Planning in the Fight to Recognize Same-Sex Marriage

Anthony Rickey (J.D. 2006, Columbia) has published Loving Couples, Split Interests: Tax Planning in the Fight to Recognize Same-Sex Marriage, 23 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 145 (2008).  Here is the abstract:

A fundamental tension exists between the Defense of Marriage Act, which forbids the Internal Revenue Service and the federal judiciary from recognizing same-sex marriages, and the Internal Revenue Code, which uses marital status to identify parties likely to collude in order to minimize their collective tax burden. Same-sex couples married under state law are arguably exempt from anti-abuse rules promulgated to eliminate tax shelter strategies employed by opposite-sex married couples. This Article provides a relatively simple example of a tax-planning device that advocates for same-sex marriage may be able to use to exploit this tension as part of a campaign to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. Such a campaign would center upon legal challenges forcing the Service either to allow a “homosexual-only tax shelter” or to recognize same-sex relationships for the purpose of tax law.


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