VIDEO: How couples feel the impact of anti-marriage laws on Tax Day

Today is Tax Day, the deadline for when families from all across the country must file their taxes. For many families, it's a headache of a day - but for married same-sex couples living in states where same-sex couples do not have the freedom to marry, it can be extraordinarily challenging. 

Now that the central part of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act has been struck down, married couples living in any state across the country must file their federal taxes together, as married couples. However, in 31 states (every state besides the 17 marriage states, Missouri, and Oregon), these same couples must file their state taxes as single, unmarried individuals.

It's a confusing process that requires couples to lie about their families - to lie about their lives. 

A new video by filmmaker Karla Murphy tracks the impact that these laws have on gay and lesbian couples by focusing on one couple - Meg and Sarah, who live in North Carolina and are married. 

"Filing taxes, of all things, has become a complicated day," the narrator explains, with the couple adding (beginning at 2:40), "We've been through so many iterations of this. We used to file separately, before we were married. Then we could file in Massachusetts together but not federally. Then, we had to file separately because we were in North Carolina and DOMA was still in place. Now, we can file federally but not in North Carolina. It seems like a practice of the absurd. It's like, 'When are we going to get the equation right?' I want to get to the place where we don't have to lie about who we are."

Watch the moving story:

Married but Single from Karla Murthy on Vimeo.