Elizabeth Warren loves proposing sweeping legislative fixes for everything. It’s one of the ways she stays in the news cycle. She also loves to pander to identity groups.
Her latest attempt to cozy up to the LGBT community is by proposing financial reparations for them.
This is from Mic:
Elizabeth Warren’s Refund Equality Act would give LGBTQ+ couples the tax refunds they were previously denied
LGBTQ+ Americans have historically received unjust treatment by the United States government, but some politicians are now looking to correct past wrongs. On June 20, Massachusetts Senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren introduced the Refund Equality Act, a bill that would benefit same-sex couples formerly discriminated against through the U.S. Tax Code due to unequal marriage laws.
If the act passes, LGBTQ+ couples married in states where their union was recognized before gay marriage was legalized nationwide in 2013 could amend their past tax returns to receive IRS refunds.
According to NBC News, that’s approximately $57 million in total owed to countless couples who weren’t able to jointly file federal tax returns prior to the Supreme Court’s decision.
As Warren noted in a statement, her home of Massachusetts was the first U.S. state to legally recognize same-sex marriage back in 2004. Yet because the government’s definition of marriage didn’t match the state’s, many married LGBTQ+ couples in Massachusetts, depending on their incomes and individual finances, were prevented from receiving the refunds they deserved.
See Warren’s tweets below:
I’m glad to introduce the Refund Equality Act in the Senate. Our bill ensures legally-married, same-sex couples can claim the tax refunds they earned, but were denied before marriage equality was the law of the land. https://t.co/01rgfSiXUQ
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) June 20, 2019
It wasn’t until marriage equality became law that gay & lesbian couples could jointly file tax returns—so they paid more in taxes. Our government owes them more than $50M for the years our discriminatory tax code left them out. We must right these wrongs. https://t.co/OZQcfVilSs
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) June 23, 2019
Warren got a lot of responses to that, but we think this is the best one:
When will you be paying Native Americans reparations for appropriating their culture and taking opportunities away from actual Natives for decades?
— Ashley StClair 🇺🇸 (@stclairashley) June 23, 2019
Too funny.
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