Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry has signed into law a 130-page omnibus bill that, among many other things, creates a $10,000 one-time income tax deductionA tax deduction allows taxpayers to subtract certain deductible expenses and other items to reduce how much of their income is taxed, which reduces how much tax they owe. For individuals, some deductions are available to all taxpayers, while others are reserved only for taxpayers who itemize. For businesses, most business expenses are fully and immediately deductible in the year they occur, but others, particularly for capital investment and research and development (R&D), must be deducted over time. for unreimbursed costs associated with donating all or part of a liver, pancreas, kidney, intestine, lung, or bone marrow (Section 37, pages 89-90). The bill directs the Oklahoma TaxA tax is a mandatory payment or charge collected by local, state, and national governments from individuals or businesses to cover the costs of general government services, goods, and activities. Commission to write rules outlining what would be a deductible cost.
Currently federal law prohibits paying people for donating organs, and some have proposed changing this system as the number of people on organ waitlists grow each year. Whatever the merits of those proposals or what Oklahoma has done, it may be a trend: this website indicates that Oklahoma is the 13th state to adopt some form of tax deduction for costs associated with an individual donating an organ. (The others are Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, and Wisconsin.)
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