By Anthony C. Infanti

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I always find January depressing. It isn’t the weather that gets me down, although the gray Pittsburgh skies and the frigid temperatures certainly can be trying. No, it’s the constant barrage of mail from banks, mortgage companies, and my employer, all of whom are so thoughtfully providing me with the information that I need to complete my federal income tax return. Given the “ugh!” that is probably reverberating inside your head as you read this, I’m sure that this plaint would sound trite if I weren’t to immediately confess that I’m a “tax geek,” someone who makes his living teaching and writing about the tax laws.

Alas, I find tax time depressing for reasons different from most. To me, tax time is more than the occasion for fulfilling my obligation to defray a portion of the cost of government; it is an annual reminder of my difference — and of my oppression by the government because of that difference. Completing my federal income tax return reminds me that the government has singled out for condemnation my partner and me, my sister and her partner, and every other lesbian and gay man in the United States.

When the W-2s and 1099s begin to appear in my mailbox, I can’t help but think how the federal government legally erased even the possibility of a relationship for me when it enacted the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). From the perspective of the federal government, my marriage to my partner in Toronto, Canada, never really happened — and, for that matter, never could happen. Each year, when tax season comes around, I feel the legal eraser scraping against me once again as the federal government returns to ensure that it has removed all trace of my relationship. As if to continually reaffirm its success in wiping away the connection between us (or, perhaps, because it never really can succeed), the federal government forces my partner and me to act as if we were total strangers by demanding that we file two “single” tax returns every April 15.

But even within the diaphanous realm of federal tax law, we cannot truly be made “single.” Because our lives are intertwined financially and emotionally, when the federal government designates us as legal strangers, it can, at most, banish us to that uncomfortable and uncertain space between “single” and “joint.” Life in this tax “limbo” is in some ways more precarious than DOMA’s outright condemnation would seem to indicate. In tax limbo, members of lesbian and gay couples are told what they are not (i.e., married), but they are never told what they are (and, concomitantly, how they should report transactions between them). The existence of this limbo opens the way for the federal government to visit further, more dehumanizing, indignities upon us: it allows the federal government to invade the sanctity of our homes — and of our relationships — to demand that we account for our every move, with our partners and with others, or suffer consequences that range from confiscatory monetary sanctions (i.e., interest, penalties, and, of course, interest on the penalties) to imprisonment.

So, when the dreams of sugarplums in December give way to nightmares about what might better be termed the lesbian and gay circle of tax hell in January, I can’t help but feel haunted by the voices of the reactionary congressmen who enacted DOMA as they repeatedly deprecate my relationship by referring to it as a “marriage” — with the quotation marks that mark it as a sham, a failed and hopelessly failing attempt at establishing a lasting, loving tie with another human being.