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Why this tax season made me cry
President of the Queer Straight Alliance
Everyone hates tax season — everyone but the tax preparers and the IRS. Doing taxes is required of most citizens. Most of us get frustrated by the paperwork, the complicated questions or the line at H&R Block. The only thing we have to look forward to is the tax return, the possible great big check from Uncle Sam. As a full-time student I look forward to my tax return to help supplement my financial aid. This year, the process of filing my taxes left me crying and feeling less like a U.S. citizen and more disenfranchised. This year I felt the direct impact of my unequal rights and it hurt me deeply.
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As usual after receiving my tax forms I loaded up www.turbotax.com on my computer and sat down for what I hoped would be a couple hours of frustration. First step: marital status, Registered Domestic Partnership (RDP). Then I saw the pop-up box (see Fig. 1)
After spending four hours filing three separate returns, I noticed something very disturbing. If my domestic partnership was recognized on a federal level, my family would have received an additional $700 on our federal tax returns. For some, $700 might not be a lot of money. But for a low-income, full-time student, a 78 percent increase in your tax return could have provided us one month of rent, or one year of textbooks, or six months of groceries. Realizing this, I began to cry.
Would you feel very frustrated if you were forced to file taxes THREE SEPARATE TIMES? Unfortunately, since Oregon passed the Domestic Partnership law in 2008, it wasn’t until this year that the tax system caught up to the Oregon state law to make the appropriate changes. I spend a lot of time in my daily life dealing with the inequities of having a same-sex partner. As a student, if your married name does not match her Social Security card, it causes daily confusion with financial aid, my teachers and anyone who checks for my state ID with my school-issued Higher One Mountain Card. The only solution is to pay a large fee, petition a judge and spend the day in court requesting the right to change the name federally to match the Oregon Identification card.
But these problems are frustrating annoyances that I’ve just learned to deal with. But when I am struggling to make ends meet and to stay in school as a full-time student, the loss of money, even if I never expected to receive it, can be heartbreaking.
There are 1,138 federal benefits and rights denied to me and my family for the single reason that my relationship of seven years is not recognized by the federal government. No matter what your beliefs are on homosexuality, can you honestly look at me and say I deserve less than you, that I am less of a citizen than you? I am your friend, your student, your daughter, your sister, your aunt, your co-worker and your neighbor. Should I have to fight for equal rights under the law? I don’t care if it’s called marriage, civil union, domestic partnership or same-sex union, but my family deserves equal rights.
This Wednesday at the Student Activities Board “Love Week” Karaoke Event in the Vista Dining Center, the Queer Straight Alliance will be partnering with Basic Rights Oregon to film 30-second videos in support of Federal Marriage Equality from 11a.m. –2 p.m. We ask that you take a moment to stop by and learn how you can help and/or film a video and let your voice be heard.
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