For the first time, we were allowed to file as a married couple.
Partly, anyway.
We did of course have to pay the "marriage penalty." I am okay with that for equality, and for the ability to protect my family (even when she is singing "What Does The Fox Say?", which she is as I type this).
But the extra that I am not okay with paying?
Having to get an accountant to do our taxes because they are now too complicated for me to risk doing.
And they are too complicated because we file as married federally and in Maryland, where we are now residents (yay! Full citizenship!).
But in Virginia and South Carolina, where we own property, we must file as single, as strangers. As though I picked a random person to buy property with.
And in order to file as single, not only do we file two returns instead of one, but we also must do FAKE single federal forms in order to figure out what we owe as single people. Which, of course, we are not.
South Carolina and North Carolina have been running this awareness campaign called #Married364. As in, we are married every day of the year except tax day.
And as one of my best friends, who is also legally married, on that day, we are forced to lie.
1 comment:
That is so not what right looks like.
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