IRS Videos Advise Married Same-Sex Couples On Tax Filing

By Dennis Lambert
Published: Friday, March 7, 2014 - 11:40am

The Internal Revenue Service is providing free advice on YouTube for same-sex couples preparing to file their taxes.

The IRS has posted a two-minute video to explain how it will treat same-sex marriages for tax purposes. In the video, an IRS spokesperson says same-sex spouses will be treated as married for all federal tax purposes from now on, with a few stipulations,

“This change applies as long as you got married in a location that recognizes same-sex marriages, either in the United States or in another part of the world," the spokesperson says. "It doesn’t matter whether you were living there at the time you were married and it doesn’t matter where you live now.”

The change follows the invalidation last year of the Defense of Marriage Act by the United States Supreme Court. As a result, the video says married same-sex couples will likely want to file their tax returns as married filing jointly or married filing separately. And the agency says they may want to re-file returns for previous years, because refunds could be involved.