In today's challenging economy, the demand for nonprofit services is greater than ever. At the same time, nonprofits have found contributions declining as more Americans struggle to make ends meet.  Many nonprofits rely on, not only government support, but on large gifts from wealthy      individuals and families, as well.
                
If enacted, President Barack Obama's proposed budget for fiscal year 2012 will likely reduce charitable giving even further. His budget proposal would harm charitable organizations by raising the tax rate on upper-income individuals and families and reducing their income tax deduction for charitable donations. These two changes in the tax code will undoubtedly discourage charitable donations, by weakening the incentive for the wealthy to give.
                  
The goal of Obama's budget proposal is to raise money to help close the nation's mounting federal deficit by limiting the tax write-offs that high-income people can get for their itemized deductions.  But this clearly comes with a price, one that charities and nonprofit organizations will pay.  Studies on President Obama's proposal to limit the value of the charitable deduction, have estimated that the change could depress giving anywhere from $1.7 billion to $5.6 billion, which is enough to put many nonprofits out of business, at a time when many Americans need them most.

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New York's Estates, Powers and Trusts Law ("EPTL") contains a number of provisions that give special rights to surviving spouses.  For example, if an individual dies without a will, his or her surviving spouse is entitled to receive the deceased spouse's entire estate if there are no surviving issue or $50,000 and one-half of the remaining estate if there are surviving issue.  A surviving spouse also has the right to elect to take one-third of the assets of his or her deceased spouse regardless of what the provisions of the deceased spouse's estate plan provide.  The legislative intent above makes it clear that whether all the statutes in the EPTL governing these rights have been changed to gender-neutral or not, they are to be considered gender-neutral.
                    
Before the Marriage Equality Act, there was some judicial precedent for extending the benefits of these provisions to the surviving spouses of same-sex marriages.  The Act now provides a statutory basis for this extension.  But make no mistake, whether it be a same-sex relation or a different-sex relation, these benefits do not extend to unmarried couples, no matter how long the relation existed.
                    
The application of the New York tax rules to same-sex married couples becomes very complicated because of the fact that federal tax law does not recognize same-sex marriages.  For most income and estate tax purposes, New York tax law follows federal tax law.  Under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federal law provides:
        
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