this is my aggravated face
Apr. 13th, 2012 02:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksOh hey the being gay-married tax this year was only three hundred dollars. That is actually better than usual, but of course we live in a state where we can file state taxes as married, meaning we're only being forced to pretend we're not married on a federal level. So we're only paying the federal being gay-married tax (by which I mean the amount of money we lose by having to file as individuals), as opposed to both federal and state. And we've lived in a state where our marriage is legal for the vast majority of our married life, so that's been extremely helpful.
That said, I have a very long list of things we could have done with the three hundred dollars. And I have intentionally stopped keeping track of the amount of money we've paid in being gay-married taxes over the course of our marriage, because it is Very, Very Depressing and thinking about it too hard makes me bitter. At the moment, I'm only, you know, slow-burn bitter in a way that crosses my mind at intervals in tax season and occasionally sends me into spasms of aggravation at other moments. If I had an actual figure, it would probably intrude significantly on my quality of life.
Remind me to thank the government sometime for the random-ass bureaucratic reminders that I am a second-class citizen. (We're not talking about the whole right-name-on-passport question right now, or the question of whether the Social Security Administration should or should not be paid attention to by any other branches of the government when it issues an ID, or what it's like having two completely separate legally valid surnames, which has at least become a lot easier since I started using my non-married name as a pen name, meaning it is still okay for people to write checks to it and so on. If I want the federal government to pay any attention to my married name, I must file change-of-name paperwork separate from my marriage license, because as far as my marriage license is concerned they are sticking their fingers in their ears and humming, except SocSec, who will pay attention to a driver's license, but the passport admin kind of wants to listen to SocSec except they don't really and on and on and on and on...)
Anyway. Three hundred dollars. Is what it has cost us this year to be married lesbians. I know people who have had to spend a lot more for the same reason; I know this is relatively light.
Damn it.
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That said, I have a very long list of things we could have done with the three hundred dollars. And I have intentionally stopped keeping track of the amount of money we've paid in being gay-married taxes over the course of our marriage, because it is Very, Very Depressing and thinking about it too hard makes me bitter. At the moment, I'm only, you know, slow-burn bitter in a way that crosses my mind at intervals in tax season and occasionally sends me into spasms of aggravation at other moments. If I had an actual figure, it would probably intrude significantly on my quality of life.
Remind me to thank the government sometime for the random-ass bureaucratic reminders that I am a second-class citizen. (We're not talking about the whole right-name-on-passport question right now, or the question of whether the Social Security Administration should or should not be paid attention to by any other branches of the government when it issues an ID, or what it's like having two completely separate legally valid surnames, which has at least become a lot easier since I started using my non-married name as a pen name, meaning it is still okay for people to write checks to it and so on. If I want the federal government to pay any attention to my married name, I must file change-of-name paperwork separate from my marriage license, because as far as my marriage license is concerned they are sticking their fingers in their ears and humming, except SocSec, who will pay attention to a driver's license, but the passport admin kind of wants to listen to SocSec except they don't really and on and on and on and on...)
Anyway. Three hundred dollars. Is what it has cost us this year to be married lesbians. I know people who have had to spend a lot more for the same reason; I know this is relatively light.
Damn it.
You can comment here or at the Dreamwidth crosspost. There are
