Janis Cowhey, Co-Leader of the LGBT Practice Group, Quoted in Associated Press Article, "Tax Day Gets Complicated for Same-Sex Couples in States that Don't Recognize Their Marriages."
Associated Press
By Stephen Ohlemacher
Excerpt:
A necessary burden for most Americans, Tax Day is an accounting nightmare for thousands of gay and lesbian couples as they wrestle with the uneven legal status of same-sex marriage in the United States.
They live in a country that recognizes their marriages, but some reside in the 13 states that do not, an issue that will be argued before the Supreme Court later this month.
At tax time, and Wednesday is the filing deadline, it gets complicated because most state income tax returns use information from a taxpayer’s federal return.
“For the people it hurts, how unfair,” said Janis Cowhey, a tax partner at the Marcum accounting firm in New York. “You won’t recognize my marriage, but you’re going to make me pay more in taxes because I got married somewhere else.”
