Originally published on Forbes.com May 25th, 2013
Given how excited people get about taxes, it is surprising that We The People, the White House petition site does not show more action in the tax area. Well at least one petition with substantial tax significance has merited White House response. The petition was to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which holds that for purposes of federal law marriages of same sex couples are not recognized. DOMA is not just about taxes.
It is frequently mentioned that there are 1,138 benefits in the US Code that hinge on marital status. That is a bit inflated, since there are probably not many same sex spouses that would otherwise be entitled to benefits under Section 1536 of Title 38, which provides pension benefits to spouses of veterans of the Indian Wars. Nonetheless, DOMA affects lots of important things besides taxes, like pensions, employee benefits and immigration. The ability to file a joint return may be the one that affects most people, though.
DOMA Petition
The petition was pretty simple:
The purpose of this petition is to ask the United States Government to repeal the Defense of Marriage (DOMA) as it is unconstitutional.
It does not allow everyone in the United States to be treated as equals. Sign here to have DOMA repealed.The ability to love is in a human being’s very DNA. It shouldn’t matter if we want to be with someone of a different race, religion or nationality. It should definitely not matter if its even someone of the same gender.
Sign for the freedom to love!
So was the response:
Thanks for your petition.
As we’ve said before, we agree with you: The Defense of Marriage Act is discriminatory and should be repealed. President Obama has long supported overturning the law through the legislative process. He also has concluded that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional, as his Administration has argued in court challenges across the country.
And earlier this year, the Obama Administration appeared before the Supreme Court and argued that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional.Of course, President Obama also personally believes that all couples who are in loving, committed relationships should be able to get married, no matter their sexual orientation.
For more information on President Obama’s policies regarding the LGBT community, check out WhiteHouse.gov/LGBT and sign up for updates.
Well, maybe the Supreme Court will take care of it. We’ll probably be hearing from them in June.
Other Developments On We The People
The White House does not agree that Senator Dianne Feinstein should be tried for treason for proposing a ban on assault weapons. Given the response to the petition to deport Piers Morgan, that is not surprising. I understand treason is punishable by death. That’s worse than being sent to England, I guess.
I was really pleased with the response to the petition to make the metric system standard in the United States.
The United States is one of the few countries left in the world who still have not converted to using the Metric System as a standardized system of measurement. Instead of going along with what the rest of the world uses, we stubbornly still adhere to using the imprecise Imperial Unit – despite the fact that practically every other country that we interact with uses Metric.
Just the way that petition was phrased made me willing to walk a mile to hit the originator with a yardstick. “Going along with what the rest of the world uses” – yikes.
The official response came from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. It indicated that the metric system has been the official system in the United States since 1875, but, in this country, some standards are voluntary:
While many countries mandate the use of the metric system by law, the U.S. Congress has repeatedly passed laws that encourage voluntary adoption of the metric system. We use a mixture of metric and customary units depending on the context. We also have a long tradition of voluntary standards and our bilingual system of measurement is part of that tradition.
Let’s stick with tradition here:
Ultimately, the use of metric in this country is a choice and we would encourage Americans to continue to make the best choice for themselves and for the purpose at hand and to continue to learn how to move seamlessly between both systems.
In our voluntary system, it is the consumers who have the power to make this choice. So if you like, “speak” metric at home by setting your digital scales to kilograms and your thermometers to Celsius. Cook in metric with liters and grams and set your GPS to kilometers.
Otherwise they’ll start using that crazy Celsius thing and the weather people will be saying its below zero, when it is just slightly chilly out.
Support For Hipster Tax Building Slowly
Finally, there is still a way to go to get a response to the petition to tax hipsters. The signature count has increased by 50% since the last time I looked, but there are still 99,997 to go. Of course, the slow going may be a result of the difficulty in definitively identifying hipsters
You can follow me on twitter @peterreillycpa.