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.”
