The basis for the case was the right to benefits for same-sex married couples; the same right held by heterosexual married couples. Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, a same-sex couple living in New York, were married in Canada in 2007. Spyer died in 2009, leaving everything she owned to Windsor. Under the law, widows do not have to pay tax on anything they inherited from their dead spouse. Windsor tried to claim this exemption. She was barred from doing so by Section 3 of DOMA, which said that the word "spouse" only applies to a marriage between a man and woman. The Internal Revenue Service denied Windsor's claim, and demanded that she pay $363,053 in inheritance taxes.