By Aaron Miller-
Georgia taxpayers can now list embryos as dependents on their tax return, following a news release on Monday. Georgia’s department of revenue said it would begin to “recognize any unborn child with a detectable human heartbeat … as eligible for [an] individual income tax dependent exemption”.
Taxpayers filing from 20 July or after, when Georgia banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, will now be entitled to up to $3,000 (£2,500) in tax credits, in a major new change set up to promote the triump of the new law for pro lifers.
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Under the new provisions, Tax filers may be asked to provide documents proving that the embryo has a “detectable human heartbeat” in order to be eligible for the income tax dependent exemption.
The announcement follows the supreme court’s ruling on 24 June, overturning the landmark Roe v Wade ruling that established the nationwide right to an abortion nearly half a century ago. A lower federal appellate court had also decided on 20 July to let the Georgia law banning most abortions in the state to take effect.
The announcement sparked controversy in the U.S and among pro abortion groups, with several petitions set up calling for women’s rights to be respected and common sense to be applied by justices,
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The implication of the rule is that would-be parents may claim embryos as dependents after as early as six weeks gestation. Claiming a dependent on their tax return allows Georgia residents to receive a $3,000 dependent personal exemption for each embryo.
The guidance notes that Georgia residents should be ready to provide medical records or other documentation if the state’s Department of Revenue wants to see evidence.
Officials added that taxpayers filing returns from 20 July onward can claim a deduction of up to $3,000 for any fetus whose heartbeat could be detected. That “may occur as early as six weeks’ gestation”, before most women even know they are pregnant, the statement said.
Taxpayers must be ready to provide “relevant medical records or other supporting documentation, if requested by the [revenue] department”.
Advocates for abortion rights reacted to the announcement with disappointment.
Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University law professor and political scientist, tweeted that some pregnancies detected within six weeks of gestation “result in natural miscarriages”, which could leave the Georgia’s treasury “handing out a lot of cash for pregnancies that would never come to term”.
Miscarriage
Lauren Groh-Wargo, manager of Stacey Abrams’s campaign for Georgia governor, tweeted: “So what happens when you claim your fetus as a dependent and then miscarry later in the pregnancy, you get investigated both for [possible] tax fraud and an illegal abortion?”
The Georgia revenue department’s announcement Monday came within weeks of a pregnant woman in Texas memorably argued to police that her unborn child should count as an additional passenger upon receiving a traffic ticket for driving alone in a high-occupancy – or HOV – lane.
Over 50 % of the states in America have either banned or are expected to ban abortion after the supreme court returned regulation of abortion to the state level.
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