sadly, the gov't will never recognize same sex marriages. There's too much tax money to be lost if you allow same sex couples to pass their assets on to eachother, like you can with opposite sex marriages.

personally, I think everyone should be allowed to get married to men or women, same or opposite sex, provided they are of legal age. Why shouldn't two men be allowed to express their love for eachother via a marriage recognized by the state and the country? why are opposite sex couples allowed to be miserable in marriage and same sex couples are not? I say everyone should be allowed the freedom to pursue misery.

Originally posted by Crakeur
sadly, the gov't will never recognize same sex marriages. There's too much tax money to be lost if you allow same sex couples to pass their assets on to eachother, like you can with opposite sex marriages.

I don't understand what you mean here. Are you arguing about spousal deductions, or passing through intestate succession?

I would wager that a well-done estate plan could avoid those same consequences for a same-sex couple, married or no.

estate tax planning can be done to minimize the bite but the easiest method is to pass your assets, tax free, to your spouse. you cannot do this if the gov't doesn't recognize your spouse as being your spouse.

nothing is as clean as a will saying "I leave everything to my spouse" and, at the moment, same sex couples can't pull that off.

I disagree; the possessions and money of a gay man get passed on to someone whether it is to family, or a lover or a charity. It is a wash to the government in the end. If it was really about money, they would eliminate the hetero marriage deductions. There are a miniscule number of gay people and only a tiny fraction of them are married or would get married. Not a big financial effect one way or the other. It's funny, but my contacts in fed government tell me that the senators and representatives of the red states are very cozy with their gay staffers and other gay congressmen/women; only on the campaign trail do they show any real anti-gay rhetoric. It is just for show, to get votes from their bigoted constituents. Why are the constituents bigoted? Because of the "religious" people preaching it to them. But, with the dying off of the more conservative generation, the pervasiveness of the media approval of gayness, and the Iraq war and other issues taking precedence, I forsee state by state recognition and eventually federal recognition. That is how it went with the interracial marriage battle.

Revocable Living Trust. Get a kit for about 20 bucks. Attorneys hate 'em. You avoid probate.

[Check your state's laws]

ok, for starters, possessions get passed, after taxes. married couples don't pay the estate tax on assets passed from spouse to another. The tax is about 50% so a person with a home worth 1.5 million and assets, pension etc worth another 1.5 million would have to pony up 1.5 million from the assets and then the rest would pass on to the heirs. ( I'm ignoring the credits etc for the sake of the example).

now, let's say you are old and straight and you have no heirs and a few million in assets and you want nothing less than giving the gov't a nickel. what's to stop you from "marrying" a friend and passing your money on to him?

Originally posted by yeahright
Revocable Living Trust. Get a kit for about 20 bucks. Attorneys hate 'em. You avoid probate.

[Check your state's laws]

revocable trusts count as assets when you die. the idea is to avoid paying the estate taxes, if possible.

As someone who is sitting in an estate planner's office right now studying to be an estate planning attorney, I don't hate revocable trusts. Frankly, the more you can get around probate, the better off I think you are.

But I don't care for those kits because I think in 20 years there will be tons of litigation over problems with them; each person is different, and to think that one can fill in a couple fields and define their finances for ever may be in a bit of a surprise down the road.... Consumers need to understand that when they use those kits they may have unforeseen difficulties.

[edit on 6/14/2007 by Togetic]

Originally posted by Crakeur
now, let's say you are old and straight and you have no heirs and a few million in assets and you want nothing less than giving the gov't a nickel. what's to stop you from "marrying" a friend and passing your money on to him?

Nothing. But that could happen with straight people, as well.

Originally posted by Crakeur

revocable trusts count as assets when you die. the idea is to avoid paying the estate taxes, if possible.

I completely agree. (Which I know means a lot). RLT doesn't do squat for taxes at all. But upon death it does allow for much quicker dispersal, not to mention avoiding the costs of probate, which can be not only public, but expensive and time consuming. Obviously, each situation is different and will present multiple levels of complexity.

See your tax professional/accountant.