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Pet Owners Deserve Claim of Exemption or Tax Credits for Pets
Should American's pets be counted as an exemption or tax credit on taxpayers income tax forms? I happen to think they should. I think pet owners of dogs and cats should be allow to claim at least a partial exemption or tax credit for owning and taking care of their pets.
Why you might ask? Because these pet owners help to create business and jobs, just as any child raising would do; just ask any veterinarian or pet food shop in the nation. These businesses have to hire people to stock supplies and sale the store's items. Vets spend years in school learning to be a vet. They have to hire others to help handle the animals in their veterinarian shops.
Pet owners are helping society by taking these animals into their homes instead of leaving for the local dog/cat pounds to impound and shelter using taxpayer dollars.
Just imagine if Americans thought they could gain a tax credit or an exemption for raising a pet from the local pound. It would sort of like Americans that offer to adopt a child - they are saving taxpayer dollars (that would be needed to raise that child in a state facility) by doing so.
To anyone that claims animals don't cost much, think again. My one dog alone, cost me in the range of $2000 per year to raise and keep healthy. Oh sure, not all pets require such care as mine does; but for the most part, if you count food and yearly checkups and vaccinations the price can be at least $700 - 900 a year.
In return for all that they do for society, pet owners deserve a little help in return for their efforts.
What's your opinion?
Why you might ask? Because these pet owners help to create business and jobs, just as any child raising would do; just ask any veterinarian or pet food shop in the nation. These businesses have to hire people to stock supplies and sale the store's items. Vets spend years in school learning to be a vet. They have to hire others to help handle the animals in their veterinarian shops.
Pet owners are helping society by taking these animals into their homes instead of leaving for the local dog/cat pounds to impound and shelter using taxpayer dollars.
Just imagine if Americans thought they could gain a tax credit or an exemption for raising a pet from the local pound. It would sort of like Americans that offer to adopt a child - they are saving taxpayer dollars (that would be needed to raise that child in a state facility) by doing so.
To anyone that claims animals don't cost much, think again. My one dog alone, cost me in the range of $2000 per year to raise and keep healthy. Oh sure, not all pets require such care as mine does; but for the most part, if you count food and yearly checkups and vaccinations the price can be at least $700 - 900 a year.
In return for all that they do for society, pet owners deserve a little help in return for their efforts.
What's your opinion?
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An exemption, I'm not so gung ho about...but a tax credit? Hmmmm. That would depend on a lot of factors including the idea that people would rush out and adopt pets just for the tax break then would let the adopted pets die of neglect or abuse. There's some rotten people out there who wouldn't think twice about using animals in such a way.
Maybe it could be factored in a way that if you had receipts totaling a percentage of your income, you could maybe get a break. I dunno. Pets can be expensive, but to me, it's always seemed like a voluntary expense.
I've often thought it would be a good idea for a yes/no check off box on income tax forms that indicated you wished $1 to go towards paying for a nation wide spaying or neutering program to reduce the overload of unwanted pets.
February 15, 2009 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Having a child is also a voluntary expense...or at least it should be.
As for abuse - you could require the pet be owned for more than 2-3 years before allowing for tax credit. By then you have proof of taking care of the animal. You could also require a signature of vet that pet is in good health at that moment.
February 15, 2009 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Too many people buy pedigreed animals while strays languish in shelters. Any conceivable tax benefit would have to acknowledge and mitigate the suffering of abandoned animals.
February 15, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps if you prove you've taken in a stranded animal you should get a bit more tax credit.
February 15, 2009 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe a tax credit for the the "reasonable" cost of adopting a spayed or neutered animal.
The only thing that worries me is that dog breeders would probably figure out a way to subvert the rules to benefit themselves.
February 15, 2009 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
You make some very good points, but I doubt it will ever happen. The county where I live is so cheap and unfair they won't even allow me to transfer the license I just recived and paid for to register my Chihuahua who died just days after I paid for her yearly license. I have a new dog now, and it seems only fair I should be able to transfer my departed dogs license over to her. but noooooooo.. they just gouge people as much as they can !
February 15, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Possible problems:
(1) Drop kennels of abused animals exploited bought/sold for tax deductions, often kept in foreclosed homes or rental properties.
(2) Listing of deceased animals on tax returns.
(3) Need for tax ID numbers for all pets. Photo ID card program and paw prints needed for pet ID.
(4)Animals not expected to survive long enough to qualify for next years taxes being abandoned, left on streets.
(5) Growth of illegal industry providing fraudulent birth certificates for cats/dogs, centered in Florida.
(6) Mexican pets flooding across border for sale in illicit tax scams.
(6) Entrepreneurs in US maintaining unsanitary conditions with scores of animals on property, illegal rental of pet tax ID's to tax dodgers.
(7) Offshore Cayman Island unregulated kennels housing thousands of pets for US tax dodging purposes only.
February 15, 2009 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, I don't agree. And I have pets. Lots of them. By your criteria, people who are shopaholics are supporting the economy and should get tax breaks. People who own pleasure-boats have dock-fees, by gas, etc. Skiers pay tons of money every year in lift tickets, plane trips and condo fees, plus hundreds of incidentals.
Pets are like the best hobby in the world, and they are their own reward. Where would we stop if we started giving tax breaks for simply spending money on something? Why not reward people who save every month?
February 15, 2009 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a really silly idea. Why not a tax break for boat owners? Thats thousands of dollars per year into the economy. Pets are great to have, but they are not equivalent to children. I'll repeat. Animals are not human beings. There is no equivalence.
February 15, 2009 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Boy, I hope they grant exemptions for pets!!!!
Town people been hauling their dogs out here for years and dumping them. When the dogs get so weak from starvation they can't be shooed away, you either have to feed them or take them down into the bottoms and shoot them.
I think I'm owed a few pet exemptions for the ammunition I've had to buy down through the years!!
February 15, 2009 8:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Coonsey, I am sorry for the two insulting posts which did nothing to respond to your question. As you can see from mine above, I don't agree with your idea, but that is no reason to try to humiliate you for bringing a topic up. Please consider the source, and keep coming back!
February 15, 2009 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
No problem being made fun of. I'm sure the same things were said about including children as exemptions and tax credits in the very beginning. They ARE after all - voluntary. It's not the rest of us taxpayers fault that you had kids to support.
Actually, I don't really feel that way but that's how some of you sound.
February 15, 2009 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about goldfish, or potted plants?? You got designs on changing our tax code for pet rocks coonsey??!!!!! Har har har!!!!
February 15, 2009 10:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
While I'm talking about the BENEFITS of having children -- is it truly fair for singles without children to LOSE benefits a the place they work at?
For example, at my place of business, if you have children you get half off the price of something the company sells. They call it a benefit for married couples or singles with children -- it keeps good workers happy I'm told. Besides I'm told, these parents have to support these kids, they are replenishing the earth.
Yet, the single person or married couple without children do not get this extra benefit - can't even get it for close relatives like nieces and nephews or even parents, or perhaps just the money itself.
In other words, if you have a child, you get an extra benefit of say, $10,000 per year for that child.
Is that really fair?
February 15, 2009 10:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
No. As to a point below about service dogs. Many of them are trained and provided by tax-funded programs.
February 16, 2009 7:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
While I'd love an extra tax break, I don't think it would be feasible idea. Pets don't have ID numbers the way we do, so it probably wouldn't take long before some people would take advantage and begin claiming 80 dogs/cats on their returns.
The only way to prevent that sort of abuse would be to create pet IDs, which would probably cost pet owners more than they'd ever see in the form of a tax break.
It's a nice idea, though, considering the costs involved in taking care of a pet and the fact they are very much a part of the family. :)
February 15, 2009 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are out of your mind.
February 15, 2009 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
If your pet grows up, gets a job, and pays taxes then I think it deserves a tax credit.
February 15, 2009 11:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you have a point to ponder. I like it and generally agree with you about it as an abstract need.
I don't think companion animals are hobbies. They are treated as such by societies, still. But I hope the day will come, and hopefully in my lifetime, when this will cease.
They are beings and when we have a companion animal, that being is a member of our family, no? I think so. But how would it --your plan-- work?
I also do think that Flowerchild has a point in the forms of grotesque abuses this may generate. Scary abuses for which you would have to come up with a plans of circumvention.
February 16, 2009 1:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe instead of offering a tax break for pets we should end tax breaks for people who have kids. Maybe that would slow down the Octamoms.
February 16, 2009 1:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just stop government financing of Octamoms. That would shut that shit down immediately!!!!
February 16, 2009 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Very good point JohnRove!
February 16, 2009 7:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting concept though I don't really agree with it personally. Reasoning is that I could see many people getting pets just for this notion. Even if you have a provision in this such as documentation from a vet. Who says that the vet is going to be a good vet and not a money grabber. I have seen this several times now. Looking the other way for that money and whom would benefit but not the pet but the human that actually bucked the system. I know many of us love our animals but unfortunately this will not stop the abuse or neglect just add to it.
With that said lets talk govenment and their thinking. For this to even be considered is that the government would have to change their perception from pets being property to pets being an investment. As pets are not humans and therefore have no legal rights. Again this is the perception of the government which is why when a pet gets injured or killed by somebody one cannot ask in the courts of law pain and suffering. Just how much the pet (ie property) at the time cost.
I doubt very much that the government will look at changing such terms.
As for service animals under the government they are considered as medical equipment henceforth the tax exemption under that category. If they weren't considered by the government as medical devices then people with disabilities wouldn't be able to write them off as a tax break. Sorry to say this but that's the reality of the government.
February 16, 2009 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink