North Dakota Creates Gay Tax Form

From the Grand Forks Herald:

North Dakota now has a tax form for married same-sex couples, and it’s precisely because the state doesn’t recognize such marriages. For the North Dakota tax department, that posed a bit of a dilemma, according to Lorie Bowker, who oversees the department’s income tax section. She said its answer was the form ND-1S, which was posted online about a week ago. It’s basically a work form for divvying up a couple’s federal tax filing so they can file as individuals in North Dakota. Bowker said, like the federal government, there is a “marriage penalty” built into the North Dakota tax code, so filing as individuals could be beneficial to same-sex couples. For example, a couple earning $75,000 together would owe the state $1,341, but if they filed as two individuals earning half that amount, they would together owe $151 less.