Taxes add sting to loss of domestic partner

Los Angeles Times
June 16, 2009
Don Atkins shared his life with Ted Horzella for 37 years. For the last three years of Horzella's life, the men were registered with the state of California as domestic partners. But when Horzella died in 2005 at the age of 76, Atkins was shocked to learn his annual property tax bill would rise from $1,400 to $10,400. Atkins, 67, is among about a dozen homeowners in the county who have applied for an exemption from property reassessment after the death of a partner or the breakup of the relationship. It's a benefit long enjoyed by married couples and extended to new domestic partners in 2006, six years after the state began registering them. But those who registered before that date must apply for reconsideration. [Link]