Google takes care of it’s gay employees

Google will begin covering a tax cost that gay and lesbian employees must pay when their partners receive domestic partner health benefits. This will compensate gay couples for an extra tax that heterosexual married couples do not pay. The increase will be retroactive to the beginning of the year.

According to The NYT, Human resources experts say the move could inspire Google’s Silicon Valley competitors to follow suit – because they compete for the same talent. On average, employees with domestic partners will pay about $1,069 more a year in taxes than a married employee with the same coverage, according to a 2007 report by M. V. Lee Badgett, director of the Williams Institute, a research group that studies sexual orientation policy issues.