By now you’ve likely heard that Representative Mike Johnson—the congressman Republicans finally elected as the new Speaker of the House after 22 days of chaos—played a significant role in the plot to overturn the 2020 election, a lowlight on his résumé that is obviously deeply concerning for the future of democracy. Also extremely worrisome? Johnson’s wildly bigoted remarks about homosexuality over the years, and the fact that he supported criminalizing gay sex between consenting adults.
CNN’s KFile reports that prior to his career in politics, Johnson wrote a series of deeply homophobic editorials in his role as an attorney for the socially conservative legal group now known as Alliance Defending Freedom.
It also partially excludes those who don’t earn a lot, at least where I live (Ontario, Canada).
You earn around 30k a year? Hey, you get some benefits! Two people earning 50k a year? Well, obviously you don’t need those benefits anymore. In fact, let’s cut your collective returns down by a nice $342.
Nothing changes if you’re just roommates, but they sometimes really want to verify that you’re not secretly common-law. You can get in legal trouble if you get caught.
It was kind of messed up the first year that my partner and I filed taxes together, to be honest. We couldn’t do that until we were living together for 2 years (federal government), and 3 years (provincial government).
They didn’t tell us to both save the entire previous year’s GST, and it ended with us having to pay between $500 and $700. That was a fun birthday suprise. The bad parts of common-law start before any of the benefits, apparently. They also seem to start before you can legally file. I tell everyone who I know is moving in with a partner, because fuck that noise. I wish someone told us earlier. Anyone, really.