9101 / What are domestic partnerships?

Individuals who are in registered domestic partnerships or civil unions are not treated as spouses for federal tax purposes, but are often entitled to some of the benefits afforded to legally married couples, including employment-related benefits (see Q 9103). Further, while domestic partners are not treated as married for federal purposes, they may be entitled to certain state benefits. For example, certain counties in California extend benefits that married spouses are entitled to receive to individuals in domestic partnerships, while in Delaware no specific state provision exists to extend such rights. States generally maintain a domestic partnership registry to keep track of couples who have entered into these arrangements.¹

It was expected that the availability of domestic partner benefits would be curtailed after the holding in Obergefell, because now all couples have the right to be legally married and, theoretically, domestic partner status is no longer as necessary as it was prior to that ruling. In 2019, however, the California state domestic partnership statute was changed to eliminate the limitations on who can form a domestic partnership, so that opposite sex couples younger than age 62 are now permitted to form a domestic partnership (under prior law, either (a) both persons had to be members of the same sex or (b) one or both persons must have qualified for Social Security old age benefits (meaning that one person in an opposite sex couple had to be at least 62 years of age to qualify for domestic partnership status)).²