Stop Tax Breaks for Drive-Through Killing

[hiley]

This is from an email I recieved today.

I'm about to tell you something truly shocking: trophy hunters have been killing animals during canned hunts and big game safaris, and you and I have been paying for it.

As reported in a front-page exposé in The Washington Post, wealthy hunters have been killing a few "extra" animals, donating the trophies to pseudo-museums, inflating the value of these trophies and then taking a huge tax deduction for their "charitable" contribution. These so-called museums have sometimes been in someone's basement or even abandoned railroad cars. Click here to stop this scandal: http://go.care2.com/e/H.b/eX/eXxv

The scam is so blatant it's simply shocking; tax deductions are engineered by questionable trophy appraisers who advertise with slogans like "Hunt For Free," "Hunting in a Tight Money Economy," and "7 Secrets of Tax Deductible Hunting."

Fortunately, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) has tightened up the part of the current tax code that deals with charitable donations to solve this problem.

His changes are part of a massive "tax reconciliation" bill, which passed the Senate November 18. The House passed a different version of the tax bill December 8 that did not address the taxidermy tax scam. Now, the bill must be reconciled, so we need your help urging Congress to make sure the final bill ends this tax scam. Sign this petition:
http://go.care2.com/e/H.b/eX/eXxv


Thanks for your help today,

Hilary S.
Care2 and ThePetitionSite.com

P.S. It's one thing to allow the point-blank shooting of defenseless animals in fenced enclosures, but it's quite another to get a tax cut for doing so. The buck has got to stop here.


Urge your U.S. senators and representative to close the loophole - rich trophy hunters shouldn't get tax cuts for shooting animals in fenced enclosures.
http://go.care2.com/e/H.b/eX/eXxv

:mad:

[TX-RAT]

1. Is there a link to the WP article?

[hiley]

2. I am looking

:hi:

[nonny]

3. Here is the link

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26324-2005Apr4.html

[hiley]

6. nonny thank you!

I was having a horrible time locating that.
don't know what's wrong with me today!
:silly:

[TX-RAT]

8. thank you

[ElaineinIN]

4. I'd like link to the actual legislation

I know alot of about Grassley's charity legislation, and I would be very very hesitant to sign on to anything approving it. By the way, those scams are just that--scams that are arguably already illegal. Grassley's charities approach, amusingly enough, is pretty consistent about putting in new limits to address issues that are already a violation of current law.

[ElaineinIN]

5. Having now read the article

its is a general provision that governs what you do with donations of tangibles. It is generally aimed at the "donate your car" version of the scam. But, as I indicated, its already a scam--these folks are subject to serious penalties for overvaluing their charitable deduction, and given the amount they are selling for, they are in fraud range. Also, the charities sound like they wouldn't be charities any more if the IRS had the people to audit them.

[kliljedahl]

7. I'm a hunter

This is wrong on so many levels, and should be illegal on all of those levels.



Keith’s Barbeque Central

[monk24]

9. Got the same e-mail

Thanks for posting this. I got the same e-mail.

This practice is despicable and needs to be stopped. I hope all members of DU forum will give this petition every consideration and sign it!