PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE: …“What you have to understand, in many cases, [legal same-sex marriage] is actually being treated as a non-event,” said Kathleen Schneider, a Regent Square lawyer and LGBT activist. “These folks who thought they wouldn’t ever be able to be married, treated themselves as being married. They already had joint financial accounts, they owned real estate jointly, named one another as beneficiaries in 401(k) plans and their wills. They did as much as they could within the confines of the law.”
There are other advantages, she said. Married persons may receive spousal survivorship benefits from Social Security, to be paid to the survivor at death. There’s no real estate transfer tax if you are married. As a married person, there is no Pennsylvania inheritance tax, while unmarried partners must pay 15 percent tax on everything they inherit.
For federal estate taxes, applicable to larger estates, the spouse who is the “second to die” may be able to escape estate taxes on an even larger share, a benefit not available to singles. On the down side, same-sex married couples may be socked with a marriage penalty for federal income taxes, unless one in the relationship is earning considerably less… (more)
