Tax Code Gets a Modern Makeover: Congress Swaps 'Husband and Wife' for Gender-Neutral Terms

The “Equal Dignity for Married Taxpayers Act” isn't about creating new tax breaks or adding a new deduction; it’s a massive, but technical, cleanup effort across the entire Internal Revenue Code (IRC). The main action is simple: it replaces outdated, gendered language like “husband and wife,” “he,” and “his spouse” with gender-neutral phrases such as “married couple,” “spouse,” or “the taxpayer and the spouse of the taxpayer.” This applies to hundreds of sections dealing with everything from joint returns and claiming dependents to estate tax deferrals and gift tax rules. Essentially, this bill modernizes the language of the tax code to reflect that a legally married couple is a legally married couple, regardless of gender.

The Fine Print: What Changes for Your Taxes?

If you’re married, this bill doesn't change what you owe, but it solidifies how the rules apply to you. Section 2 of the bill ensures that rules governing things like claiming certain credits (Section 38), handling losses (Section 165), and filing joint returns (Section 6013) apply consistently. For example, when dealing with community income exclusion (Section 911), the law now explicitly calculates the maximum exclusion based on the aggregate amount, treating the married couple as one unit. This removes any ambiguity about how these rules apply to same-sex couples or any couple where the historical gendered language might have caused confusion.

Treating Married Couples as 'One Person'

One key theme running through the bill is the explicit confirmation that a legally married couple is treated as a single entity for specific tax purposes. This “one person” treatment pops up in areas like determining partnership status for low-income housing tax credits (Section 42) and calculating the value of closely held business interests for estate tax deferral (Section 6166). This treatment generally applies unless the spouses lived completely apart for the entire tax year. This consistency is important because it ensures that all married couples navigate these complex financial rules the same way, removing any potential for the IRS to interpret the law differently based on the gender of the spouses.

Cleaning Up the Language of Family

Section 3 tackles the bulk of the language cleanup, making sure that every instance of gendered possessives is swapped out. For example, the phrase “his spouse” is replaced everywhere with “the individual’s spouse” or “the taxpayer’s spouse.” This applies to rules covering retirement accounts (Section 408), employee benefits (Section 132), and property transactions. Even references to taxable years and homes are updated, changing “his taxable year” to “the individual’s taxable year” (Section 2(b)(1)). While this seems like a purely administrative change, it’s a major step toward making the federal tax code clearer, more inclusive, and less reliant on outdated assumptions about who is married to whom. For the average person filing their taxes, this means the rules governing their deductions or credits are now written in a way that respects their marriage without qualification.