The mortgage interest deduction rules limit deductible interest to the amount of interest paid on $1.1 million of qualified mortgage debt ($1.0 million of acquisition debt plus $100,000 of home equity debt). The statute is not clearly drafted about how…

Since opposite-sex RDPs are not affected by DOMA, is it possible for them to be considered married at the federal tax level? In other words, should they be filing as married (either jointly or separately)? Good question. And I addressed…

Today Federal District Judge Jeffrey S. White (Northern District, California) ruled that DOMA was unconstitutional as applied to Karen Golinski, a staff attorney at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. This is a great opinion, explaining…

The Ninth Circuit handed down its decision in the Perry case on February 7, 2012, finding that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. Today, the proponents of Proposition 8 filed for rehearing en banc.…

Tomorrow, February 7, 2012, is the day. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has just announced that it will release its opinion by 10:00 AM California time. This is the Perry v. Brown case, in which plaintiffs argue…

Nina Olson, the National Taxpayer Advocate, has started a blog. I think this is cool because she often highlights issues that affect the same sex tax community. Remember that in her 2010 report to Congress, which I blogged about here,…

I will be participating in two national tax advice call-ins. Both will be at 3PM ET, with the first one on Wednesday, January 25 and the second one on Wednesday, February 8. The purpose of these calls is to answer…

Happy New Year. It is a new year and we have new tax laws. That’s the way it works these days. Of the new laws the one of most interest to the same sex tax community is the expiration of…

In 2003, the United States Supreme Court reversed the 1986 opinion in Bowers v Hardwick, holding that the right of sexual intimacy was protected by the U.S. Constitution. The plaintiff in that case was John Geddes Lawrence. His willingness to…

Rep. Jim McDermott just introduced a new Estate Tax Bill that would return the estate tax exemption to $1.0 million and restore the pre-20001 progressive rate structure with a top rate of 55%. This bill makes sense as a fair…