Marriage Equality Unequal So Far

I co-worker of mine IMed me the other day, saying: 

Someone who was ragging on the inequality of not allowing gays to marry said someone would have owed $14,500 MORE in taxes if he was not married to his partner. does that seem possible? and also, does the fed not recognize your marriage? do you file in CA as married and single for the fed?

My reply:

The federal gov't doesn't recognize any state's legal same-sex marriages, thanks to the so-called Defense of Marriage Act passed a few years ago; therefore, state-recognized same-sex marriages are not "equal" to man/woman marriages anywhere in the U.S. This is a very rare exception to the federal government's long-standing custom of honoring each state's marriage laws -- that's why, even if it is a "states issue" it's not really be treated that way.

Same-sex married couples (and registered domestic partners) in California must file state taxes as if they were married. To do that, they first file their individual federal taxes (filing status Single), and then they create a shared faux federal 1040 for state purposes, selecting either Married Filing Separately or Married Filing Jointly. They then calculate their Calif state taxes based on that faux return, and submit it with their Calif tax return.

I have heard that there is no longer a "marriage penalty" in Federal and California taxes -- that is, an unmarried couple supposedly doesn't get a better tax deal than a married couple. I have no idea what kind of salary that person makes (the one who would save $14.5K filing as married), but after I created our individual 1040s in TurboTax, I noted that our estimated individual state refunds added up to several hundred dollars more than what we ended up getting with our Married Filing Jointly return...but at this writing I haven't checked yet. 

My co-worker believes that the unmarried partner of the person who complained about the $14.5 differential in taxes would almost certainly qualify as a dependent under IRS rules which we have written training about. Even a person not related to the taxpayer by blood or marriage can, in fact, be a dependent, and that might provide at least some relief. Further, the taxpayer may qualify to file as Head of Household which might also have advantages. In any case, faced with that kind of difference in taxes, he should consult a professional tax preparer. Believe it or not, the official policy of the IRS is to encourage taxpayers to take whatever legal and legitimate approach is necessary to pay the lowest possible tax.