Moritz v. Commissioner

Moritz v. Commissioner
Court	United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Full case name	Charles E. Moritz, Petitioner-appellant, v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Respondent-appellee
Decided	November 22, 1972
Citation	469 F.2d 466 (10th Cir. 1972)
Case history
Prior actions	Decision for the Commissioner, 55 T.C. 113 (1970).
Subsequent actions	Cert. denied, 412 U.S. 906 (1973).
Court membership
Judges sitting	Judges William Judson Holloway Jr., William Edward Doyle, Fred Daugherty[1]

Charles E. Moritz v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 469 F.2d 466 (1972), was a case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in which the Court held that discrimination on the basis of sex constitutes a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. Charles Moritz had claimed a tax deduction for the cost of a caregiver for his invalid mother and the Internal Revenue Service had denied the deduction. The law specifically allowed such a deduction, but only for women and formerly married men, which Moritz was not.

The United States Tax Court agreed with the IRS's decision to deny the deduction, but on appeal the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision, holding that the tax code conflicted with the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and extending the caregiver deduction to never-married men.