What about the Abortion Tax Loophole?

There has been a lot of talk lately about “closing tax loopholes,” with particular attention paid to the tax treatment of corporate jets and oil companies. To be sure, the tax code could certainly use some simplification (ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow can speak to this, given his prior experience as a tax trial attorney in the Office of the Chief Counsel for the Internal Revenue Service). However, in typical partisan fashion, the loopholes that are being targeted have far more to do with politics than sound policy.

For example, despite the fact that polls consistently show that Americans do not want to fund abortions with their tax dollars, did you know that elective abortions are tax-deductible? Yes, you heard that correctly…abortions have their very own tax loophole.

Section 213 of federal tax code allows for medical expenses to be deducted from an individual’s taxable income, providing that they spent at least 7.5% (this threshold will soon be 10% as stipulated by Obamacare) of their income on qualifying health care expenses. It would seem reasonable that this deduction would be reserved for true medical expenses, especially given the Left’s penchant for touting “preventative care.” However, as clearly stated on page five of IRS publication 502, “you can include in medical expenses the amount you pay for a legal abortion.”

It’s difficult to estimate how many abortions are deducted each year, but there can be no doubt that this abortion loophole results in indirect taxpayer subsidization of an extremely large number of abortions. And it’s reasonable, given the American People’s opposition to favorable tax treatment for abortions, to ask why the President is willing to talk about corporate jet loopholes without also targeting the abortion loophole.

Could it be that the President doesn’t know about the abortion loophole? That’s unlikely, given that language to close this loophole passed the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year, before stalling in the Senate. It seems much more likely that the President simply likes the abortion loophole more than the other loopholes.

It’s a sad fact, given both the innocent lives claimed by these abortions and the overwhelming opposition of the American People to subsidizing them. It’s time to close the abortion loophole.