Georgia allows residents to claim embryos as dependents on tax returns

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Georgia will now allow taxpayers to claim an ‘unborn child’ as a dependent on their tax returns.
• Taxpayers can claim it on their taxes this year if they had a fetus with a heartbeat between July 20 and December 31.
• The move is part of Georgia’s larger anti-abortion law that took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Georgia will now allow taxpayers to claim their unborn fetuses as dependent on their tax returns after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.

The state’s Department of Revenue in a statement said the “Department will recognize any unborn child with a detectable human heartbeat as eligible for the Georgia individual income tax dependency exemption.”

The new ruling went into effect on July 20.

The statement said that if any individual has an “unborn child” with a heartbeat — “which may occur as early as six weeks’ gestation,” the statement said — from July 20 to December 31 of this year, the taxpayer “may claim a dependent personal exemption in the amount of $3,000.00 for each unborn child.”

There will be a designated section on the form to designate a fetus as a dependent for Tax Year 2022.

Georgia’s Department of Revenue added that relevant medical records and supporting documentation will be necessary to prove the taxpayer qualifies for the deduction.

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, ending the constitutional right to an abortion in the US.

The fetal tax deduction was a part of a larger 2019 law that would ban all abortions in the state after a heartbeat is detected in utero.

The law was initially ruled unconstitutional in 2020 when Roe v. Wade was still the law of the land.

But the law has been held up in court since Fall 2021, pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

After the Supreme Court sided with Dobbs and threw out Roe v. Wade, a federal appeals court ruled that the anti-abortion law could take effect.

Source: CBS News