Equal Tax Treatment for Civil Partnerships

Coeurdepirate

http://www.labour.ie/press/listing/13077112675180576.html

Ciaran Lynch, Labour TD for Cork South Central, has welcomed the publication of legislation that will allow cohabiting couples to be treated in the same way as married couples.

"The Finance (No 3) Bill 2011 was published yesterday and honours a pledge set out in our Programme for Government.

"I raised this issue of equal tax treatment on a number of occasions with the Minister for Finance and was assured that legislation to provide the same tax treatment for civil partners as that provided for spouses would be forthcoming. I am pleased that the Minister has now published this legislation which will also ensure that children of civil partnerships will be treated the same for inheritance tax as children of a married couple.

"These tax changes have come about on the back of the Civil Partnership Act, legislation that Labour supported last year, and I very much welcome the legislative certainty that this Finance Bill brings to the tax affairs of same-sex couples. .

"The Minister also assured me that these new provisions will have effect for the entire 2011 tax year, and that the new law will be retrospective in that respect, which I warmly welcome.

"The Labour Party continues to support the equal treatment of same-sex couples and are proud of our legislative successes in bringing about their legal recognition."

Chuchoter

You know what would have been cheaper and less time consuming? Just giving us marriage to begin with. I honestly can't be happy about any progress being made re:civil partnership. The whole thing offends me and trying to placate us with changing the tax laws is even more annoying.

diddlybit

Couldn't agree with Crayolastereo more. It's quite offenisve to be brushed off with tax breaks, as if that was the LGBT community's only concern that we're not stiffed in the pocket.

Adoption rights would go a lot farther to recognising same-sex partnerships as legtimate as their heterosexual counterparts, financial incentives reek of an "arrangement" rather than the "true" love that brings straight people together.

I hope Labour follow through on their pre-election promise of civil marriage and family rights and or else I shall be writing them very strongly worded letters and not voting for them again. (because that will teach them :rolleyes:.)

L1011

This is just fixing what had to be thrown aside due to the rushed budget; not any specific further progress.

Coeurdepirate

Oh I completely agree with everyone, obviously this isn't enough, but still, we have more rights now than we had so I think it's something to be happy about, although we obviously won't be content until we're treated equally.

I_am_LOST

Hope you lot don't mind my 2 cents on the topic. Bear in mind I know very little about straight marriage, civil unions etc. :pac:

Was just wondering, what is the issue with wanting gay marriage? Surely marriage is something between a man and a woman in religious terms, held in a Church or something similar. Would any Churches or religions support same sex marriage?

If not, then what's the difference between same sex civil partnerships and marriage? As long as both couples are getting equal rights and benefits what is the problem?

Please excuse my ignorance as I really don't know much on the topic! Just curious as to why gays want marriage as opposed to a civil partnership which would give them all the same benefits a straight marriage would give (i.e. legal rights, tax treatment etc.)

Manion

crayolastereo wrote: »

You know what would have been cheaper and less time consuming? Just giving us marriage to begin with.

That would have required a referendum which may not have passed, especially if it had of included adoption rights. I don't think it would have been cheaper and less time consuming, I think we'ed still be waiting for the referendum.

Manion

I_am_LOST wrote: »

Hope you lot don't mind my 2 cents on the topic. Bear in mind I know very little about straight marriage, civil unions etc. :pac:

Was just wondering, what is the issue with wanting gay marriage? Surely marriage is something between a man and a woman in religious terms, held in a Church or something similar. Would any Churches or religions support same sex marriage?

If not, then what's the difference between same sex civil partnerships and marriage? As long as both couples are getting equal rights and benefits what is the problem?

Please excuse my ignorance as I really don't know much on the topic! Just curious as to why gays want marriage as opposed to a civil partnership which would give them all the same benefits a straight marriage would give (i.e. legal rights, tax treatment etc.)

1) Marriage is divorced from religion (pun intended), I'm surprised anyone still talks about marriage in terms of how a religion, any religion, defines it. At one stage you couldn't marry someone if you'd been banging a relation of theres. Anyway point is, its perfectly fine for you to define marriage as a religious sacrament between an man and woman in the presence of god, but people haven't been forced to up hold that definition in this country for decades. My own parents married in a registry office some 30 odd years ago.

2) I guess what it boils down to is parenting rights and the right to be recognised as a family. Legally speaking a family is founded on marriage. That has a lot of implications in society. A civil partnership is just that, a civil agreement dealing with legal issues between two people, a marriage is about more, it's about a home, a life, a family. That's my view anyway.

I'd get civilly partnered for practical reasons, I'd get married for love

littlehedgehog

Also, the children issue. Civil partnership grants no rights to the other parent within a partnership (with regards to guardianship, medical decisions, in the event of death of the partner, etc)

This is my exact issue with this ridiculous bill - many people don't know the ins and outs, and assume gay people are pissed off due to childish semantics, regarding the meanings of words.

This gives a good break down of all the issues with the bill.

Aard

I_am_LOST wrote: »

Was just wondering, what is the issue with wanting gay marriage? Surely marriage is something between a man and a woman in religious terms, held in a Church or something similar. Would any Churches or religions support same sex marriage?

There are two parts to getting married, as we know it today:
1. Saying the "I do"s in front of God, along with the whole ceremony shebang. Very lovey-dovey and romantic.
2. Getting the crisp marriage certificate typed and stamped by a civil servant who probably couldn't give a proverbial.

The first on its own means nothing in the eyes of the law. The second on its own means nothing in the eyes of God.

If all you want to get are the tax-breaks and whatnot that are part of the marriage parcel, then you only have to get the certificate. Most people who do that opt for a mini-ceremony too. This is civil marriage.

If you want the church and priest, then you have that ceremony instead. This is religious marriage.


I'm sure there are technicalities I've glossed over, but this's the thrust of the matter.

If not, then what's the difference between same sex civil partnerships and marriage? As long as both couples are getting equal rights and benefits what is the problem?

That's the main problem: when civil partnership came out, it gave couples something like 125 new rights. Compare this to marriage, which gave couples 600 new rights. Partnerships and marriage aren't equal. The new tax thing will help a little, but it's not much in the grand scheme of things.

Please excuse my ignorance as I really don't know much on the topic! Just curious as to why gays want marriage as opposed to a civil partnership which would give them all the same benefits a straight marriage would give (i.e. legal rights, tax treatment etc.)

As above, partnerships simply don't give anywhere near all the same benefits as marriage.

Also it's worth pointing out that most gay marriage advocates are campaigning for civil marriage. This is basically just the marriage certificate and the little ceremony; it has nothing to do with wanting to get married in a church or by a priest.



I hope that answered you questions. Feel free to ask more; many people (gays included) tend to be a little confused by the whole thing

Chuchoter

I_am_LOST wrote: »

Hope you lot don't mind my 2 cents on the topic. Bear in mind I know very little about straight marriage, civil unions etc. :pac:

Was just wondering, what is the issue with wanting gay marriage? Surely marriage is something between a man and a woman in religious terms, held in a Church or something similar. Would any Churches or religions support same sex marriage?

If not, then what's the difference between same sex civil partnerships and marriage? As long as both couples are getting equal rights and benefits what is the problem?

Please excuse my ignorance as I really don't know much on the topic! Just curious as to why gays want marriage as opposed to a civil partnership which would give them all the same benefits a straight marriage would give (i.e. legal rights, tax treatment etc.)

Marriage in a religious sense and civil marriage are technically supposed to be two different things. The state should be giving us the same rights in a legal sense as they do straight people, religion shouldn't affect it.

Civil partnership and marriage, aside from having considerable differences in a material sense as Jean described, separate but equal is not equal. If civil partnership gets to the point where its identical to civil marriage I still won't be happy and its not semantics. There is no reason for marriage to be the preserve of straight people beyond prejudice.

L1011

Manion wrote: »

That would have required a referendum which may not have passed, especially if it had of included adoption rights. I don't think it would have been cheaper and less time consuming, I think we'ed still be waiting for the referendum.

It would have required a supreme court visit first, NOT a referendum (unless it failed). The Irish language version of the text - which has precedence - refers to protecting the "household" not the "family".

People need to stop believing FF's lies on this.

Chuchoter

Basically if they wanted to, they could have given us full marriage. They just wanted to salvage the few votes they had left

Annasopra

MYOB wrote: »

It would have required a supreme court visit first, NOT a referendum (unless it failed). The Irish language version of the text - which has precedence - refers to protecting the "household" not the "family".

People need to stop believing FF's lies on this.

Legal opinion is divided on this - Noone can say for certain if a referendum is required or not. Personally given the high court judgement in Zappone I think it probably is but we need to wait for the supreme court judgement really

Aard

He's not saying that a referendum is not required at all. Just that it's not the first course of action.

I_am_LOST

Thank you all for the clarification! I understand why gays want marriage now rather than just civil partnership! One day

who is this

Johnnymcg wrote: »

Legal opinion is divided on this - Noone can say for certain if a referendum is required or not. Personally given the high court judgement in Zappone I think it probably is but we need to wait for the supreme court judgement really

Even if the SC affirmed exactly what the High Court found, it wouldn't guarantee the need for a referendum. The High Court judgement (from what I know - I did read it itself, but not all of it - it's very long) essentially affirmed there was no onus on the State to provide same-sex marriage. It didn't say the State could not do so should it so wish (again, based on what I read - feel free to correct me).

Although I voted for them, I have to say I'm pretty damn peeved at Labour. Their commitment for that Convention is nonsense. It guarantees nothing, and before the election they had already accepted as fact that a referendum was required (I don't agree, but still). Why the Convention? What's it going to investigate? What the Colley Report investigated? Whether a referendum is necessary? They already said one is. It's nothing more than spin for "FG didn't like this. We agreed to drop it cause it doesn't matter that much, but we're dressing it up like we sort of won".

No concrete commitments to anything: repealing Section 37 is shaky; children issue far too vague to mean anything of substance; marriage promise is either time-wasting, or it is no commitment at all.

I would love to see a bookie's odds on the current Government rectifying any of the above (and believe me, I'm normally very optimistic) :P

Edit: Meant to link to this: http://www.labour.ie/press/listing/13086685262256007.html . Just as carefully vaguely-noncomitally worded as programme for government. No mention of anything but the convention.