Sexes: Sin Subsidy

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Triple divorcees lose tax fight

In December 1975, Angela and David Boyter went to Haiti for a seven-day vacation and a divorce. A year later, eleven months into their second marriage, the Boyters did the same thing in the Dominican Republic. Since then, the Ellicott City, Md., couple have remarried and been divorced a third time. They figure that their revolving-door matrimony has saved them $15,000. The reason: federal laws that favor single taxpayers. The Internal Revenue Service challenged the couple, arguing that the first two divorces were "sham transactions" and that they would not be recognized by Maryland. Last week the IRS won a court decision ordering the Boyters to pay $3,135.34 in back taxes.

The provisions that drove the Boyters south, enacted as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1969, were designed to end discrimination against single people. But now it is married couples who feel victimized. As a rule, if both spouses work and one earns 25% or more of what the other does, their tax bill is higher than it would be if they were single. For example, two such partners earning $10,000 each last year had to pay an extra $391. Angela Boyter, a federal programs analyst, and her husband, a Department of Defense physicist, had a combined income of about $60,000 in 1979 and, by filing as singles, slashed their IRS bill by nearly $4,000.

For the Boyters and 20 million married couples, relief may be spelled Congress. Both the House and the Senate are expected to pass bills that would allow married persons to file as singles, though final action may not come until next year. The Boyters vow to remain single until then. In the meantime, they can be glad of one thing: their legal expenses are tax deductible.