Sponsors (45)
The bill modernizes and gender-neutralizes tax-code language and standardizes terminology to reduce confusion and administrative friction, but it brings short-term implementation costs, transitional filing risks, and some interpretive uncertainty that will require IRS guidance to resolve.
All taxpayers — especially same-sex and nonbinary married taxpayers — will see tax-code language become gender-neutral, reducing confusion and preventing misinterpretation when filing returns.
Married couples and their estates will get clearer treatment in specified provisions (e.g., below-market loans, partnership interests) by treating married couples as one person for those rules, simplifying application of certain tax rules.
The IRS/Treasury and taxpayers will benefit from standardized terminology and modernized headings across multiple IRC provisions, which should reduce administrative errors, processing delays, and simplify cross-references and guidance.
Substantive wording changes (including the replacement clause in §42(j)(5)(C) and other rephrasings) could alter tax interpretation, creating uncertainty for taxpayers and practitioners until IRS guidance or case law clarifies effects.
Tax preparers, payroll systems, and tax-software vendors will incur one-time compliance costs to update forms, instructions, and systems, costs that may be passed along to taxpayers or employers.
There is a short-term risk of filing errors and processing delays while practitioners, vendors, and agencies update materials and systems, which could cause confusion or incorrect returns for some taxpayers.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Replaces gendered spouse terms and pronouns throughout the Internal Revenue Code with gender-neutral and taxpayer-centered language and makes conforming edits across many IRC sections.
Official title: Amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to clarify that all provisions shall apply to legally married same-sex couples in the same manner as other married couples.
Introduced June 26, 2025 by Ronald Lee Wyden · Last progress June 26, 2025
Rewrites many provisions of the Internal Revenue Code to replace gendered and binary spouse language (e.g., "husband and wife," "his," "her") with gender-neutral, taxpayer-centered terms (e.g., "married couple," "the taxpayer's," "the spouse of the taxpayer"). It also replaces one clause in section 42(j)(5)(C) with new language (text not provided here) and directs broad conforming edits across dozens of IRC provisions so statutory language and cross-references use neutral phrasing. The bill does not create new programs, spending, deadlines, or agencies; most changes are textual and interpretive. One substituted clause (in § 42) is substantive in form but the provided excerpt does not show its content; otherwise the measure updates pronouns and spouse references to reduce gendered terminology across the tax code.