Throughout the course of their lives, same-sex couples experience many legal challenges not faced by their heterosexual peers. Federal estate tax law continues this differential treatment into death. While the estate tax laws generally allow married heterosexuals to transfer unlimited assets to their spouses at death without incurring estate tax liability, Americans in same-sex relationships are limited in their ability to transfer assets tax-free to their same-sex partner upon death. Using data from several government data sources, this report estimates the dollar value of the estate tax disadvantage faced by same-sex couples. In 2009, the differential treatment of same-sex and married couples in the estate tax code will affect an estimated 73 same-sex couples, costing them each, on average, more than $3.3 million.

This analysis estimates the impact of allowing same-sex couples to marry on Maine’s state budget. We estimate that allowing same-sex couples to marry will result in a net gain of approximately $7.9 million each year for the State. This net impact will be the result of savings in expenditures on state means-tested public benefits programs and an increase in revenue from state sales and income taxes and marriage license fees.

This brief draws on two sources of data, a survey and state-collected tax revenue data, and finds that marriages have had a positive economic effect on Massachusetts – likely providing a boost of over $100 million to the state economy. Same-sex couples’ weddings injected significant spending into the Massachusetts economy and brought out-of-state guests to the state, whose spending also added to the economic boost.