Re: Gender discrimination by taxing authority
I wouldn't jump to any conclusion that what's happened is based on gender discrimination without making inquiry into other possibilities, including:
(1) Careful comparison of all facts of each filing status claim. If you haven't seen his filings, you can't conclude why he was successful and you weren't.
(2) Perhaps there is a different result based upon the sequence and/or timing of the filing status claims. If one files early as "married filing separately," then perhaps the later to file is barred from filing on a conflicting basis such as "married filing jointly" (or vice-versa).
(3) What about the Federal returns? Same problem there, or no? This might be a tipoff. Of course, the IRS may not notice a conflict between returns until much later.
(4) Who prepared the returns? Many professional tax preparers will handle problems of this sort for you as part of their quality guarantee.
(5) If someone has claimed head of household, that might bar the other spouse from also claiming that status later, but this would not be gender-based even though you might jump to that conclusion - it would be sequence-of-filing based.
