Aug 29, 2008  |  By: DAVID UNGER  | COMMENTS     

WE ALL KNOW the phrase “No taxation, without representation” as one of the nation’s first important declarations of inequality, dating back to 1763. It’s amazing that more than 245 years later, gays and lesbians are still fighting this battle.

Despite the recent political win on a local level for gay marriage in California (for now), I will try to quantitatively and qualitatively reveal how gays and lesbians get penalized in virtually every form of taxation there is, especially at the federal as well as the state and local levels.
(I acknowledge that I am using averages and assumptions as well as data from sources that I have not personally verified. But if anyone wants to challenge any of this, they are free to send in their opinion and rebuttal. This article was reviewed for accuracy by a 60-year-old heterosexual CPA who reviews my tax return, which I prepare myself.)

Let’s start at the top, the granddaddy of taxes, Form 1040, the federal income tax. According to Media Buyer Planner, the average lesbian and gay man makes a total of between $52,000 and $62,000 respectively versus the national average American of $26,036. At those rates using just standard deductions, we will pay approximately $8,493 in federal income tax while the heterosexual will pay only $2,300. That is a difference of $6,193 annually. If you factor in the fact that the average American gay man, lesbian or heterosexual works for approximately 37 years (from 25 until 62), that is the equivalent of $229,141 more in taxes over our lifetime of working.
For those of us that are in “LTRs,”

the numbers are even worse. Household incomes for heterosexual couples are about $46,000 while gay and lesbian couples are reported to be $96,000 for lesbian couples and $130,000 for gay male couples. At an average of those levels, the incremental taxes our household will pay in taxes exceed an additional $13,233 per year equating to $489,621 over our lifetimes of working.

NEXT, LET’S ADDRESS Social Security. Given those national average incomes noted above and the top Social Security rate and Medicare rate of 7.65 percent, this amounts to an extra $2,300 per year in Social Security payments. That’s another $85,000 in extra payments made over our lifetime of working versus the average straight person. Keep in mind that the rate seems to go up every year, so it is probably even more.  Another important factor that gives married heterosexuals a big advantage over us is that when we die, the payments do not continue for our spouse as it does for theirs. 

Not only that, but an ex-spouse, a child under 18 or even dependent parents are eligible for receiving this benefit. We are not so lucky in this area. Since I cannot figure out how long this period is, I cannot compute how much this could amount to, but here again we are not getting fair treatment from a federal government agency.

Here is another area of Social Security in which gays and lesbians get screwed. A 62-year-old or older heterosexual divorced spouse who has been with his spouse for more than 10 years can collect a Social Security retirement benefit based on the work record of an ex-spouse even if that person has never worked. Of course with anything related to the government, there are some caveats, but suffice it to say, we don’t get what they get with respect to the tax benefit.

Let’s now consider tax deductions — or the lack thereof — for gays and lesbians. 

The average American family has 1.86 children under the age of 18 and 90 percent of families have children. The standard deduction is $3,400 per child, thus they get a deduction of $5,691 per family, which equates to approximately $900 in less taxes paid. As we know there are far fewer gay and lesbian “families” as only 27 percent of us have children and when we do, we have less than 1.86 of them. Based on the fact that you can deduct children for 18 years, that’s another $16,000 that we are being penalized for not procreating.

So, the next time the religious right starts complaining that we are an abomination because we don’t have children and therefore should not be given marriage rights, let’s remind them how much extra we are paying in taxes to feed and teach theirs on a federal, state and local level.

NEXT UP IS additional state income tax paid by gays and lesbians. As you probably know, each state has different tax ...