Some same-sex married couples may get retroactive tax refunds from Democrats’ $1.75T social spending plan
Same-sex couples in some states may get retroactive tax refunds from the Build Back Better Act.
The current iteration of the Democrats’ $1.75 trillion social spending plan would allow taxpayers who were legally married before 2010 to claim federal benefits that are unavailable under current rules.
If the legislation passes Congress the way it is now, gay and lesbian couples in some states will be able to file an amended tax return and claim credits and refunds related to a change in marital status back to the year when they got married — which in some cases could be as early as 2004.
On June 26, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government couldn’t discriminate against married lesbian and gay couples for the purposes of determining federal benefits and protections.
The case, United States v. Windsor, invalidated part of the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act.”
Following the ruling, the IRS issued guidance that it would allow taxpayers to “to amend their returns with respect to their marital status, but only generally back to 2010,” according to a section of the Build Back Better Act. Taxpayers who were lawfully married under state law before 2010 weren’t allowed to “claim the benefits of federal recognition of same-sex marriage for pre-2010 years.”
However, same-sex unions were legal in five U.S. states prior to that: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center published in 2015 — the year when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriages nationwide.
According to the provision — titled the “Extension of Period of Limitation for Certain Legally Married Couples” — lawfully married same-sex couples will now be able to “file claims for credits and refunds related to a change in marital status back to their year of marriage, which in some cases is as early as 2004.”
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives hope to pass the Build Back Better Act — Pres. Biden’s massive social benefits and climate package — this week, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese predicted Sunday.
