Ohio bill would allow parents to claim 'conceived children' on income taxes

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – An Ohio lawmaker has proposed a bill that would allow parents to claim “conceived children” as dependents on their state income taxes.

Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery) recently introduced House Bill 654, or the Strategic Tax Options for Raising Kids (STORK) Act, which would allow Ohioans to include embryos or fetuses conceived during the taxable year as dependents. If a taxpayer and their spouse file separate returns, only the expecting mother can claim the embryo or fetus. The bill would apply to taxable years ending on or after Jan. 1, 2025.

Click said allowing taxpayers to claim a child beginning the year they were conceived, rather than the year they were born, can help families alleviate financial pressure associated with childbirth and preparing for a baby. 

“There's a lot of money that's spent in preparation,” Click said. “You start spending money as soon as you know that you have a baby on the way, and yet you can't claim that child.”

Click points to statistics from the Peterson-Kaiser Family Foundation, which reports that the average cost of having a baby in the U.S., including pregnancy, delivery and postpartum care, was $18,865 in 2022, and for those enrolled in healthcare plans, the average out-of-pocket cost was $2,854.

The lawmaker said he got the idea for the bill when he introduced the Personhood Act in July 2022, which would have added that personhood of an individual is declared from the moment of conception to the Ohio Revised Code. The Personhood Act did not pass. 

“In the midst of the conversation, somebody was really being a smart aleck, and they said, ‘Well, can we claim them on our taxes?’” Click said. “And I thought, ‘Well, you know, that actually does make sense.’”

While critics have said House Bill 654 is an attempt to classify embryos and fetuses as people and undermine abortion rights in the state, Click claims it is not an effort toward recognizing legal personhood for embryos or fetuses.

“A tax bill for the state level is not going to undo the constitutional amendment,” Click said. “This could be pro-life or pro-choice. Either way, people on both sides have babies, and to recognize that parents have expenses for those babies before the baby comes just seems logical to me.”

With this legislative session ending in December, Click said he does not believe the bill will pass this year. If it does not pass, he said he will reintroduce it.

“I wanted to start the conversation, and I'm getting some good questions and good feedback along the way,” Click said. “If the people who hate the bill have some constructive advice that can help bring some unity to this, I’m willing to listen to them if we can do something to make this bipartisan. I think it should be bipartisan because Republicans and Democrats all have babies. We all pay taxes. We all think these kids need a helping hand.”

The bill currently has seven Republican cosponsors and awaits its first committee hearing.