Oklahoma Adopts Income Tax Deduction for Organ Donation

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 deduction 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 Tax 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.)