Missouri To Recognize Marriage Equality For Tax Purposes

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon (D) announced this week that he supports marriage equality as a matter of public policy and issued an executive order that would allow legally married same-sex couples who file taxes in Missouri to do so jointly, despite the existence of a state constitutional amendment passed in 2004 which said that "to be valid and recognized in this state, a marriage shall exist only between a man and a woman."

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports

Nixon said he was making the change because state tax law is linked to federal tax law. 

After the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated part of the Defense of Marriage Act in June, the IRS ruled that legally married same-sex couples will be treated as married for federal tax purposes, no matter where they live. 

At a news conference in his Capitol office, Nixon told reporters he will issue an executive order today telling the Missouri Department of Revenue to accept the couples’ joint state returns if they file joint federal returns.

Think Progress explains how the legal situation for same-sex couples has changed since the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Windsor:

When the Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, it opened up the possibility for same-sex couples to file their federal tax returns jointly for the first time. In the past, such couples living in states that recognized their marriages could file jointly at the state level but had to file separately at the federal level. The situation is now switched, so any couple who legally married in one state but then moved to another that didn’t recognize their union can file jointly for federal taxes, but will still have to file separately for state taxes. Missouri will become the first exception to this. 

As I have been saying, we are running out of blue states to make advances in marriage equality and the next frontier in ending discrimination against LGBT people will be occurring in conservative red states. The only remaining blue states that do not have marriage or civil unions are Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. It's curious that these are some of the most populous states in the country and currently all of them (except Virginia) have Republican governors but have gubernatorial elections in 2014. Virginia is the location of a high profile federal marriage lawsuit, and there are active lawsuits in many of the other states as well. Blue states which are expected to have enacted marriage equality in the foreseeable future are New Mexico, Oregon, Colorado and Nevada.

After DOMA: "Married, Filing Joint" For 1st Time!

Today is the date when your federal taxes are due if you filed an extension. Despite being married legally for five years, today is the first time the federal government is recognizing my marriage. Sentient Meat and I filed our taxes "Married, Filing Joint" today.

It feels good. Thanks, Edie (Windsor)!

Saturday Politics: Great Resource on CA Propositions

The above image is a screen shot from CaliforniaChoices.org, a very useful resource for California voters who are contemplating how to vote on the 11 ballot propositions on the 2012 general election ballot. I just selected the postions of the Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Bay Guardian and San Diego Union-Tribune but you can customize it how you like. I also included the positions of the California Democratic Party and the California Republican Party. There's a whole other option of  selecting the positions from various unions as well.

One weird feature of the website is that it doesn't allow you to add your own choices in the red/green comparison table, although it does allow you to share your choices via social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Pinterest.

If you are a California voter I strongly encourage you to use CaliforniaChoices.org to find out more about the ballot propositions to help you make your decisions. You can also see my own positions on the 2012 California ballot propositions:

Good luck, and happy voting!

GRAPHIC: Who Pays What Taxes In America?

The internet and political chattering classes are going absolutely bonkers about the revelation that Mitt Romney has nothing but contempt for 47% of the American electorate, when he was caught on video saying:

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what...These are people who pay no income tax.My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

The graphics above show what the distribution of tax payers is in the United States, and it is true that roughly 53.6% of taxpayers pay federal income tax, but it also true that another 28.3% pay federal payroll taxes.

Ezra Klein points out that current tax policy has generally been crafted by Republican presidents and Congresses of the last couple decades:

Part of the reason so many Americans don’t pay federal income taxes is that Republicans have passed a series of very large tax cuts that wiped out the income-tax liability for many Americans. That’s why, when you look at graphs of the percent of Americans who don’t pay income taxes, you see huge jumps after Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reform and George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. So whenever you hear that half of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes, remember: Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush helped build that. (You also see a jump after the financial crisis begins in 2008, but we can expect that to be mostly temporary.) 

Some of those tax cuts for the poor were there to make the tax cuts for the rich more politically palatable. “Do you think we wanted to include a welfare payment to people who don’t pay taxes and call it a tax cut?” A top Bush administration official once asked me. “No. But that’s what we needed to do to get it done.” 

But now that those tax cuts have passed and many fewer Americans are paying federal income taxes and the rich are paying a much higher percentage of federal income taxes, Republicans are arguing that these Americans they have helped free from income taxes have become a dependent and destabilizing “taker” class who want to hike taxes on the rich in order to purchase more social services for themselves.

As Bill Clinton says, "It takes a lot of brass to blame a guy for something you did yourself."

GRAPHIC: Difference between D and R Tax Plans

Source: Talking Points Memo

Saturday Politics: CA Ballot Propositions Preview

These are the qualified ballot measures California voters will be considering on November 6, 2012, thanks to Calitics:

Proposition 30              Temporary Taxes to Fund Education. Guaranteed Local Public Safety Funding. Initiative Constitutional Amendment. The Governor's Tax Measure would bring in billions of dollars for education and public services.

Proposition 31              State Budget. State and Local Government. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute. Restricts the budgeting process to a "pay as you go" formula through an unnecessarily strict and inflexible process

Proposition 32              Prohibits Political Contributions by Payroll Deduction. Prohibitions on Contributions to Candidates. Initiative Statute. Right-wing attempt to go after labor, yet again. We've said no twice already, we need to say NO, NO, NO!

Proposition 33              Changes Law to Allow Auto Insurance Companies to Set Prices Based on a Driver's History of Insurance Coverage. Initiative Statute. Mercury Insurance measure to change loyalty discounts.

Proposition 34              Death Penalty Repeal. Initiative Statute Repeals death penalty.

Proposition 35              Human Trafficking. Penalties. Sex Offender Registration. Initiative Statute. Former AG candidate Chris Kelly helped to get this on the ballot, it would further strengthen laws against sex offenders.

Proposition 36              Three Strikes Law. Sentencing for Repeat Felony Offenders. Initiative Statute. Reforms wasteful 3 strikes sentencing measure.

Proposition 37              Genetically Engineered Foods. Mandatory Labeling. Initiative Statute. Would require labeling of GMOs.

Proposition 38              Tax for Education and Early Childhood Programs. Initiative Statute. Munger tax initiative dedicated to public education. Flat income tax boost.

Proposition 39              Tax Treatment for Multistate Businesses. Clean Energy and Energy Efficiency Funding. Initiative Statute. Changes a tax provision of a budget from a few years back. Would use revenue to fund clean energy projects.

Proposition 40              Redistricting. State Senate Districts. Referendum. GOP temper tantrum gone awry. Could invalidate the State Senate Maps.

The above comments on the propositions were made by Brian Leubitz. Generally, I agree with Brian's views on the propositions, and will probably be voting YES on 30, 34, 35, 36, 37 and NO on 31, 32, 33, 38 and 39.

What about you?

Godless Wednesday: Catholic Charities Got $2.9B in 2010 Federal Funds

The New York Times recently ran an article summarizing a new front in the ongoing kulturkampf (culture wars): the claim by Catholic officials that they are being discriminated against due to their religious beliefs by advances in LGBT equality.

This graf in particular struck my eye:

Catholic Charities is one of the nation’s most extensive social service networks, serving more than 10 million poor adults and children of many faiths across the country. It is made up of local affiliates that answer to local bishops and dioceses, but much of its revenue comes from the government. Catholic Charities affiliates received a total of nearly $2.9 billion a year from the government in 2010, about 62 percent of its annual revenue of $4.67 billion. Only 3 percent came from churches in the diocese (the rest came from in-kind contributions, investments, program fees and community donations).

In Illinois, Catholic Charities in five of the six state dioceses had grown dependent on foster care contracts, receiving 60 percent to 92 percent of their revenues from the state, according to affidavits by the charities’ directors. (Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Chicago pulled out of foster care services in 2007 because of problems with its insurance provider.)

The federal government is providing nearly three billion dollars in U.S. taxpayers monies to an organization which refuses to acknowledge basic tenets of science and aggressively seeks to force its world view upon others, discriminating on the basis of sex and sexual orientation in the process.

Ugh. It makes me nauseous to think that there are people who think they can accept funds (hello, some of which must be coming from LGBT people) and wants to use that money actively discriminating against those people, all in the name of "serving children." Is this not the text book definition of hypocrisy?

We had previously covered the conflict in Illinois between Catholic Charities heterosexist policies and the state's new civil union law on Godless Wednesday but had not seen an eye-dropping quote from religious extremist side before like this one (bolded):

Critics of the church argue that no group has a constitutional right to a government contract, especially if it refuses to provide required services.

But Anthony R. Picarello Jr., general counsel and associate general secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, disagreed. “It’s true that the church doesn’t have a First Amendment right to have a government contract,” he said, “but it does have a First Amendment right not to be excluded from a contract based on its religious beliefs.”

This is not just a text-book definition of hypocrisy but also hubris! It's shocking to me the Catholic Bishops dude mentions the First Amendment (twice!) in his statement to the New York Times. Has he read it recently?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

If your free exercise of religion involves discriminating against other citizens' "equal protection of the laws" and can be construed to contribute to an "establishment of religion" since you are attempting to propagate and promote your religious beliefs to children then it is pretty clear that you lose. And to think that you want federal money to do so is simply sickening.

Oil Companies' 2011 Profits Hit $100,000,000,000

Think Progress reports that the profits of Big 5 oil companies (BP, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, ExxonMobil) for just the first three quarters (9 months) of 2011 has now exceeded $102 billion dollars. That's 12 figure profits, folks!

And of course these companies still receive (and most Congressional Republicans support) billions of dollars in federal tax subsidies and of course pay very little taxes on these profits.

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmm.

Analysis of Herman Cain' 9-9-9 Scheme

Hat/tip to Andrew Sullivan

LOOK: Tax Rates & Income for 400 Richest Americans 1995-2007

Today is the last day one can file your tax return for 2010 (or request an extension until October 15, 2011).
As we think about taxes, it is instructive to see how the taxes and income of the 400 richest Americans have changed over the last two decades.

Hat/tip to Think Progress

LOOK: The United States Is A Low-Tax Country

Hat/tip to Matt Yglesias. 

Chart of the Day: Gasoline Taxes Throughout The World

Graphic of the Week: Impact of Bush Tax Cuts

Turbo Tax Asks About Same-Sex Marriage

I found this at the blog Sociological Images but I thought it was especially appropriate for today.

UPDATE 17:47 04/15/2010: Reader Bryan Blumberg points out that in California TurboTax will also ask if you were in a Registered Domestic Partnership (RDP):
Pretty cool!

Tax Day: Thank You, President Obama!

Today is April 15th, the day for Americans to file their 2009 tax returns. Like 98% of American households, my federal taxes for 2009 are lower than they were for 2008, thanks to the President Barack Obama tax cuts!

Thank you President Obama!