The American Institute of CPAs has written a letter to the Internal Revenue Service identifying 17 areas in which the IRS should provide additional guidance to tax practitioners and taxpayers in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision ruling section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.
The AICPA’s request for additional guidance covered income tax, estate and gift tax and other issues related to the Supreme Court decision in the U.S. v. Windsor case. Among the issues on which the AICPA requested guidance are the status of certain civil unions and registered domestic partnerships; and whether special notations are needed on amended returns to aid in the processing of forms filed by couples who choose to amend their returns to convert to joint status. The AICPA also asked whether a same-sex married employee who requests that his or her employer file to obtain a FICA tax refund must also amend his/her Form 1040 to change the filing status.
In addition, the Institute requested guidance on the tax treatment of payments that qualify as alimony to/from a former same-sex marriage partner; the tax-free transfer of property between spouses; the process for estates to claim portability of the estate tax exemption if they did not file Form 706 because they were below the filing threshold; and how taxpayers must report, or track, previously reported gifts that are now eligible for the marital exclusion and for gift splitting.
Jeffrey Porter, chair of the AICPA’s Tax Executive Committee, acknowledged in his letter Wednesday that the IRS has already released some guidance on the tax implications of the Windsor decision, but that tax preparers and their clients could use additional guidance (see
“The AICPA appreciates that the Internal Revenue Service worked to expeditiously release the recent new guidance (
