Different-sex domestic partners pay more at Syracuse U.
Last year we noted Virginia‘s offer to let state employees share benefits with household members regardless of relationship, but charge them full price while deeply subsidizing benefits for spouses. Syracuse University now joins that unwelcome trend.
For several years, AtMP members and fellow Syracuse graduate students tried to persuade the University to provide inclusive domestic partner benefits. In late January, the University announced it was “including opposite-sex domestic partners in health care benefits and providing a $1,000 offset to a federal tax on same-sex domestic partner benefits.” Huh?
Obviously, domestic partner benefits are taxed as income regardless of the partners’ gender, while spouses’ benefits are tax-free. Syracuse’s calculations have nothing to do with federal law, and everything to do with valuing (or fearing) workers in same-sex relationships more than workers in unmarried different-sex relationships, and/or endorsing the idea that employees should marry for health benefits.
