01/04/2008
California Domestic Partners Win Spousal Property Tax Breaks
The California Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that domestic partners have the right to property inheritance tax breaks given to married couples:
"The justices left intact an October ruling by an appeals court in Sacramento that allowed registered domestic partners - same-sex couples, or unmarried heterosexual couples in which one partner is at least 62 - to accept or inherit real estate from one another without new tax assessments. That's a significant advantage under Proposition 13, the 1978 initiative that rolled back property taxes to 1 percent of value and limited increases to 2 percent a year. Prop. 13 allowed counties to reassess property to full market value when it was sold or changed ownership, often leading to a substantial tax increase. The initiative did not define changes in ownership. A 1979 law and subsequent ballot measure specified that transfers of property between husbands and wives at death or divorce, and transfers to children or grandchildren, would not be considered ownership changes and were therefore protected from tax increases."
Equality California praised the ruling. Said executive director Geoff Kors: "A surviving domestic partner should not lose the family home because he or she must pay taxes that a surviving married spouse does not."
Sphere: Related ContentPosted 10:01 AM EST by Andy in California, Gay Marriage, News, Real Estate | Permalink
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I think this is YET ANOTHER example of how domestic partnerships and civil unions are NEVER equivalent to marriage no matter how many times anti-gay fundamentalists OR "gay supportive" Democrats or anyone else may say they are.
I've heard for years that California's domestic partnership law gives gay couples ALL the rights, benefits and responsibilities of marriage. I've even heard that stated by gay people, ad nauseam, here at Towleroad. If that is the case, can anyone explain to me how it is that every year, three, four, five new rights, benefits or responsibilities that have ALWYAS been given to married couples, are added to this "equivalent" law?
Don't get me wrong. I am a realist. I know that we have to take steps toward equality and sometimes domestic partnerships/civil unions are frustrating but necessary steps. What I have a problem with is when people mislead us and others as to what these laws are by misstating and misrepresenting what they do and don't do.
A spade is a spade. It is not a diamond and it is not equivalent to a diamond (pardon the Bridge metaphor). Likewise, a domestic partnership/civil union is not a marriage and is not equivalent: not in name, not in recognition, not in social status, not in legal protections, not in benefits and not in rights. We do ourselves a disservice when we pretend that they are.
Posted by: Zeke | Jan 4, 2008 10:46:10 AM
Well, that's all well and good, but a surviving partner might STILL lose the house. When a heterosexual married person dies, their entire estate flows to the surviving spouse without any taxes being levied by the IRS, regardless of the size of the estate. However, when a homosexual dies, the federal government (and in most cases the state government as well) does not recognize the partnership that person formed with a same sex partner. If the deceased's estate is valued at over $2 million, and *many* home owning California couples will hit that mark, FEDERAL estate taxes are levied, leaving a much smaller pool of money/assets for the surviving partner. The surviving partner might then be forced to sell the home they shared for years with their now deceased partner simply to pay the federal taxes that result from the transfer of an asset from one homosexual partner to the other. This is all due to the FEDERAL government's unwillingness to give our relationships the same legal footing as heterosexual relationships.
Posted by: peterparker | Jan 4, 2008 1:05:31 PM