Senate bill would remove gender-specific terms from US tax code

Senate Democrats have introduced legislation to remove gender-specific references to marriage from the U.S. tax code in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage.

Backed by the full Senate Democratic Caucus, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) unveiled the Equal Dignity for Married Taxpayers Act on Wednesday.

{mosads}“It’s about time that we update our tax law to reflect the institution of legal marriage,” Wyden said in a news release. “All married Americans deserve the same respect and dignity in the eyes of the law.”

The bill, which aims to provide equal dignity for all legal marriages in the tax code, comes a day after Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) introduced similar legislation in the House.

The Amend the Code for Marriage Equality Act introduced in the House would replace the terms “husband” and “wife” in the federal code with words like “spouse” and “married.”

The Senate bill has 45 co-sponsors, including Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Corey Booker (D-N.J.).

“For too long, same-sex couples have been treated as second-class citizens, and the onus falls on all of us to right this wrong,” Booker said in a news release. “If the highest court in the land can stand by the constitutionality of all legal marriages, then we must fight to ensure our tax code justly affords all married people the same privileges.”