The Empowering Spirits Foundation said its challenge was filed at an Internal Revenue Service office in Dallas. The San Diego-based group said the diocese is engaging in political activity by collecting signatures for the referendum, violating IRS rules applying to nonprofits.

The ballot question would overturn Maine’s gay marriage law. Gay marriage foes need the signatures of at least 55,087 registered voters to get the question on the ballot. The petitioners have until three months after the Legislature adjourns, which is expected to happen in mid-June, to collect the signatures.

IRS policy allows the diocese to participate in the campaign and help collect signatures, said Marc Mutty, public affairs director for the diocese. He rejected the IRS challenge as a “bogus attempt to sidetrack the campaign.”

Leonard Cole, a Portland attorney who specializes in tax and nonprofit issues, suggested that the church’s involvement could put it at odds with IRS rules that restrict lobbying by tax-exempt nonprofits.

“It’s hard for me to imagine how you seek someone’s signature on a petition without it arguably at least being an attempt to influence their vote once the measure was on the ballot,” Cole said.

Meanwhile, about a dozen gay-marriage supporters gathered in a park across the street from Maine’s Capitol to thank the Legislature for enacting the bill and Gov. John Baldacci for signing it earlier this month. The gathering also marked the start of the supporters’ campaign to defeat the referendum.

One of the participants, Carla Hopkins of Mount Vernon, said she was not discouraged that a same-sex marriage bill in New Hampshire has been set back by a House vote. Efforts are under way to negotiate a compromise acceptable to Gov. John Lynch.

“We’re riding high on what’s happening here in Maine,” said Hopkins, adding that she hopes to see similar laws passed throughout New England.

Four other states, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts and Vermont, allow gay marriage.

©365Gay.com 2009

Tomorrow you have a chance to re-enact the Boston tea party. Now, I’m not saying you should find a bulk storage unit for a precious resource enjoyed by the rich among us and then destroy it. But I do think you should check out one of the nationwide rallies Join the Impact is organizing to bring attention to the second class status of LGBT Americans under the tax scheme.

Put aside all notions of the Republican “tea-baggers.” This protest is about people actually disadvantaged and actually fighting for equal treatment.

Tea-partiers will be protesting the devastating fact that LGBT people file taxes and pay their equal share without enjoying many of the government benefits. This includes pension and health care death benefits but also proper representation in government agencies, marriage rights and legal inclusion even when the benefit is nothing more than equality on paper.

But they will also be arguing to pay more money. A same-sex couple who live together with more than one child file taxes individually as heads-of-household. They get to make the special deductions that come with that tax status. If they were recognized under the tax scheme, they would likely be denied this effective double-dipping.

The point of the modern LGBT tea party is that equality is important even when it does not mean better treatment under the law. Unlike the Boston tea party, there will be people out tomorrow begging to pay more taxes if it means the chance to be recognized as equal citizens under the law.

Find your local rally here.

Sounds appealing, right? Maybe to many seniors. But tax policy experts in Washington are giving it bad reviews. They see it as another subsidy for senior citizens, who already get federal help through Social Security and Medicare and often have economic advantages over other demographic groups.

Seniors typically have paid off their mortgages. Many have investments and usually don’t pay taxes on their Social Security benefits. The kids are usually grown, so they’re not saddled with day care or college costs.

“The odds are the retired folks – they’re getting pensions, they’re getting Social Security, they have investment assets, they own a house – so … they’re better off than somebody who is 30 or 40 years younger who’s trying to buy a house (and) trying to start saving,” said Clint Stretch, managing principal of tax policy for Deloitte Tax.

The Obama campaign says the idea would give tax cuts averaging $1,400 to 7 million seniors who are battling inflation with mostly fixed incomes. The campaign also says the plan would relieve millions of older people from having to file complicated tax returns.

“If you work hard and pay into the system, you’ve earned the right to a secure retirement,” says a description of the plan on the Obama campaign’s Web site. “But too many seniors aren’t getting that security, even though they’ve held up their end of the bargain. Lower- and middle-income seniors are struggling as their expenses on health and energy skyrocket while their incomes do not keep pace.”

Some of Obama’s allies in Washington think he’s onto a bad idea.

“Most low- and moderate-income seniors already owe no income tax. Among seniors with incomes below $50,000 who do owe income tax, a significant number have modest incomes because they are retired but possess substantial assets,” said Robert Greenstein, who heads the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. “Given all the problems and needs the nation faces, targeting relief to this group isn’t a priority.”

The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, gave the idea bad grades in a recent study of the two presidential candidates’ tax plans.

Seniors already get preferential treatment in the tax code. They get to claim an additional standard deduction and only a portion of their Social Security benefits are taxed. Many don’t pay payroll taxes because their income is from investments rather than wages.

“The proposal would exempt comparatively well off, though not affluent, senior citizens from tax and give them a benefit not generally available to working Americans,” said the Tax Policy Center paper. It “helps only those low-income seniors who currently pay income taxes. Those too poor to owe any tax – arguably those most in need – would get no benefit.”

Even the powerful seniors’ lobby AARP doesn’t seem excited about Obama’s idea. An AARP bulletin on the presidential candidates’ tax plans barely mentions it, saying that Obama’s proposal could partly offset additional taxes that Obama would impose on seniors through higher tax rates on dividends and capital gains.

Tax experts across the political spectrum also fault the Obama plan’s abrupt $50,000-a-year threshold. As described by the campaign, seniors making, say, $48,000 would pay no income tax, while someone with income slightly more than $50,000 could pay several thousand dollars in income taxes. Seniors nearing the $50,000 threshold would have incentive to quit working.

Congress likely would add a phaseout, according to tax experts. “Everyone knows there would never be this $50,000 cliff,” said Ben Harris, a senior research associate at Brookings.

The proposed new tax break for seniors is one of about a dozen tax changes proposed by Obama, including raising rates on people making more than $250,000 a year; extending most of the rest of President Bush’s tax cuts; subsidizing Social Security and payroll taxes for low-income workers; and boosting income and child care tax credits for low-income workers.