Council seeks credit for parents of stillborn babies

TAXES: Wasilla mayor has worked toward a one-time federal deduction since 1998.

By RINDI WHITE
Anchorage Daily News

Published: February 1, 2006
Last Modified: February 1, 2006 at 02:36 AM

WASILLA -- City council members set their sights on making federal law Jan. 23
when they approved a resolution 5-1 supporting a one-time federal tax deduction
for parents of stillborn children.

Wasilla Mayor Dianne Keller asked for the resolution. She planned to deliver it
last week to Alaska legislators in Juneau, and she has a copy ready to hand to
President Bush when she gets a chance. Other copies are being prepared for U.S.
Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski and U.S. Rep. Don Young when Keller travels
to Washington, D.C., in March on a city lobbying trip.

The resolution calls for a one-time federal tax credit that parents of stillborn
children are otherwise barred from taking. National tax laws say children born
alive, even if alive only for a moment, can be claimed as dependents.

A child tax credit is generally $1,000 per child, although the exact amount one
can claim varies according to income and other factors, according to work
sheets available at the Internal Revenue Service Web site, www.irs.gov
 .

The mother of a stillborn child, Keller said she started the effort to create a
tax exemption in 1998 after reading an Ann Landers column from April of that
year. The writer, "Wendy from Newark," complained of the injustice of having to
pay medical and funeral bills for a stillborn child, then not be allowed an
income-tax deduction for those expenses.

Keller said it struck a chord with her, and she vowed to do something about it.

Keller researched and penned what she calls the EEK Amendment after her daughter
Erin Elizabeth Keller, who was stillborn June 6, 1996.

Keller in 1998 spoke and wrote to then-Sen. Frank Murkowski about changing the
tax laws to allow a one-time deduction for parents of a stillborn child, and
she corresponded with Stevens in 2002.

Measures supporting Keller's amendment were passed at two Republican Party of
Alaska conventions, Keller said. She said she decided this year to put the
matter to the Council so she could use the remaining years of her mayoral term
to push for national support of the amendment.

Keller called friends who she knew backed the issue to speak at the Council
meeting. Several parents of stillborn children spoke, some with shaking voices
and others with quiet resolve, of how losing a child at birth changed their
lives.

"I'm a self-employed contractor," said Peter Barela, who, with his wife, Tina,
lost a son in 1999. "An event like this, it's an emotional event, very
difficult. And financially, it's an incredible event that you're stuck with for
quite a while."

"What was, over and over, so invalidating for us was that as we moved on and
others moved on, months later there was still the tax bill and the ongoing
medical expenses," Tina Barela said. "It (the deduction) validates. For parents
who experienced this, it has a far-reaching impact."

The resolution passed with Councilwoman Diana Straub the lone opposing vote.
Straub said she didn't believe Keller had taken the matter to the right venue.

"I don't believe this is the body to vote on this resolution," Straub said. "Are
we now going to be passing resolutions for people who've had ... at-risk births,
neonatal bills, physician-assisted suicide?"

After the measure passed, Keller individually thanked each council member who
supported the measure. "And Diana Straub, I will pray for you," Keller said
firmly.

In 2002, according to the state Bureau of Vital Statistics, 50 babies died
before birth in Alaska, or about 5 percent of the children born that year. The
bureau doesn't differentiate between miscarriages and stillbirths, according to
office staff, but parents can apply for a fetal death certificate if the fetus
is older than 20 weeks.

Richard Olsen is founder and executive director of the National Stillbirth
Society, a nonprofit group formed to lobby for greater stillbirth awareness and
research funding.

The group, based in Phoenix, also hopes to pass legislation in all 50 states
recognizing certificates of birth resulting in stillbirth.

Olsen, using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, estimated
about 28,000 babies are stillborn each year across the country.

Olsen said his group's focus is on preventing stillbirths through programs such
as those that record a late-term baby's movements in the womb. He said research
and education are more important than providing a tax credit to parents of
stillborn babies.

"That's a goal that can actually save lives," Olsen said.

Joanne Cacciatore, an Arizona State University professor and parent of a
stillborn baby, is pressing for national tax-credit legislation as well.

She successfully lobbied for a $2,500 state income tax exemption for parents of
stillborn children.

Cacciatore said she believes generating legislative support for issues such as
tax credits helps set the stage for research and education funding in the
future.

Cacciatore is the founder of the MISS Foundation, a nonprofit organization aimed
at providing ongoing and immediate support to grieving families and empowerment
through volunteerism, public policy and legislative education.

"A parent who has a stillborn child incurs the same expenses as a parent who
brings home a new baby," Cacciatore said.

Cribs, car seats and changing tables are often purchased well before the baby
arrives, she said.

While those costs can't be recouped, she said the $2,500 deduction is aimed at
offsetting funeral expenses for the stillborn child.

Neither Keller nor Cacciatore could say how much the one-time tax credit would
cost the Internal Revenue Service.

Keller said the cost would be negligible but the meaning behind it would provide
a sense of validation to parents of stillborn babies that their government
recognized they had cared for and planned for a child, even if it never lived.

"This is not going to break the bank of anywhere, but it will make a difference
to the families who will receive it," Keller said.

Daily News reporter Rindi White can be reached at rwhite@adn.com or 352-6709.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about stillbirths or to be involved in online discussion
groups with parents of stillborn children, go to

www.stillnomore.org www.missfoundation.org