I hate Tax Day.
I know that I shouldn't hate it, but I don't think there's been a year yet that I didn't file my taxes the day before they were due. (And there were several years of frantic post office runs the evening they were due!) I know that taxes pay for all kinds of good things like roads, Medicaid, and disaster relief -- but this yearly ritual of tax preparation forces some LGBT people to lie.
LGBT Americans, because of federally-sanctioned discrimination, are forced to deny the validity of our relationships -- forced to file as single even if we've been married or in a civil union/domestic partnership for decades. And single LGBT Americans are also impacted -- forced to pay equal taxes, but denied fairness in the workplace, the ability to marry, and so many other rights given to heterosexual Americans.
Paying federal taxes each year is tantamount to tax fraud, forced on us by a homo/bi/transphobic government.
This year, GetEQUAL is partnering with Marriage Equality USA and Equality Florida's "Refuse To Lie" campaign to highlight this discrimination. We're staging actions at post offices and other locations across the country to ensure that, when all those local news anchors are reporting on the long lines outside the post office, they're also talking about the fact that LGBT Americans are paying for rights and recognition that the government refuses to give us.
Check out the map of where actions are taking place and join one!
Across the country, LGBT Americans are saying enough is enough -- we're tired of denying our families, we're tired of denying our lives, and we're tired of being told over and over again by our government that we're "less than."
This Tax Day -- after I complete the taxes that I haven't yet started on -- I'm going to make sure that the government hears our message that the discrimination happening on this government's watch must end NOW!
For equality,
Heather Cronk
Managing Director
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