Michigan Votes Forum

Introduced in the Senate on March 21, 2006, to authorize a refundable income tax credit for a taxpayer who experiences a stillborn birth. The exemption would equal to 4.5 percent times the personal or dependency exemption (4.5 percent of $3,300 in 2006)

The vote was 37 in favor, 0 opposed and 1 not voting

(Senate Roll Call 244 at Senate Journal 36)

Click here to view bill details.

Are we going to have a new check box on our tax return? I guess that if you don't work and have a return coming you are out of luck? What is this measly token going to accomplish other than to remind people when they do their taxes of something they want to forget. I went through this with my wife. You can keep your measly $150.00. Go do some real legislation.

Pure, unadulterated natural fertilizer.

Have these idiots no shame?

Please help us to understand your thinking on this one. Most would say you don't want to put a price on a life when there is no one at fault. May we ask whose idea this was? Did a citizen approach you? Did you come up with this one on your own? Might want to survey Michigan's women's groups on this one. What do they think?

Although having a still born child is a tragedy, most of us have other bad things happen to us. Is the legislature going to pass a bill to give us a tax break for any unfortunate incident in our life? If I was a parent in this situation, I would be insulted by this terrible legislation. I can sympathize with the common sense legislators that were forced to vote for this bill because they don't want to be labeled as insensitive, and uncaring. Hopfully, the house members will have the courage to turn down this bill. This reminds me of the silly idea of giving us a $100 rebate to make up for the high gasprices. Fortunatly the congress had enough sense to dump that idea.

Totally agree with you that this bill is ridiculous. But we will part ways on the following statement: “I can sympathize with the common sense legislators that were forced to vote for this bill because they don't want to be labeled as insensitive, and uncaring. Hopfully, the house members will have the courage to turn down this bill.” Nobody was forced to do anything here. The Senators who voted “yes” on SB 1176 all are grownups who deliberately chose pandering to public emotions rather than labeling the proposal as the perverse thing it is by voting “no.” It also is absurd to expect that anything about a bill like this will be corrected by the House, which also is controlled and run by gutless, venal cynics of the same sort.

My daughter was stillborn in March of 2007. I do not expect others who have not experienced such a tragedy to understand and I live day to day in a society which does not respect the life of this child or the loss my family has dealt with. The fact that the state of michigan gives recognition to my child's birth and death by a tax credit is very comforting. This money will be spent in memory of a precious child who's life was cut much to short. Thank you.

Perhaps one should not comment on behalf of parents of a stilborn unless they have experienced a similar loss. It is more than a loss of a child, it is a life altering tragedy. Delivering a dead child is a painful and terrifying experience, many mothers cannot go back to work due to post traumatic stress disorder. Any help for these unfortunate people should be applauded not criticized.

It is not a price put on life. If one is to send flowers to a funeral is the cost of those flowers representative of that persons worth? This is an, "I'm sorry for your loss" from the State of Michigan and I'm proud to be from a state which is compassionate.

But as a taxpayer-parent who has experienced the emotional trauma of still birth and miscarriages, I feel neither obligation nor urge to provide tax relief for anyone who undergoes the experience. I do not lack sympathy. I only believe that the state has no business providing this kind of a tax break. What public purpose does it serve? None. And I do not believe it will help parents who experience a still birth in their bereavement. Some things are not my business or the general public's business in the first place, and should not be made our business by involving them in tax or other government matters.

how did you get into michigan thinking like that?

That was my first thought as well -- "ridiculous." How about loss of a living child? That's undoubtedly more heartbreaking than loss of the unborn. Where's the tax credit checkbox for that? There is some serious pandering going on to even think about putting something like this into the tax code. I see now it was sponsored by Stamas, a right-to-life lackey. As always, there's a political agenda. To those that think this was somehow proposed in sympathy or to help those who experience this tragedy, think again.

Do you mean he is a person that doesn't believe that women have a so called right to murder babies?