On August 29, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued Revenue
Ruling 2013-17 providing guidance on the effect of the U.S. Supreme
Court's decision in United States v. Windsor. In
Windsor, the Supreme Court struck down the portion of the
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defining "marriage" as
exclusively the union between a man and a woman and
"spouse" as a person who is married to someone of the
opposite sex. (See our prior Client Alert,
DOMA Unconstitutional: Impact on Employee Benefits Plans.)
What Does Revenue Ruling 2013-17 Provide?
The Revenue Ruling provides much-anticipated answers to the
question of how the Windsor decision affects tax
administration. For federal tax purposes, the terms
"spouse," "husband and wife,"
"husband," and "wife" now include an individual
married to a person of the same sex, and the term
"marriage" now includes a marriage between individuals of
the same sex, as long as the individuals were married under any
domestic or foreign
