Latest news with #GaryClick
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Required moment of silence proposed for Ohio schools
[WATCH: In the video player above, learn how Ohio schools are graded.] (WJW) — A new effort by Ohio lawmakers would require schools to provide a moment of silence each day for students. If passed, House Bill 187 would amend Ohio Revised Code to require school districts to provide a moment of silence for 'prayer, reflection, or meditation upon a moral, philosophical or patriotic theme.' Person struck by multiple vehicles on I-271: Coroner Under current law, districts 'may' offer a moment of silence. The amendment instead says districts 'shall' offer it. The bill would not require students to participate. Lawmakers in other states have recently proposed similar legislation. Last week in Texas, lawmakers advanced bills that would not only allow districts to provide students with time to pray during school hours but would also require public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, The Associated Press reported. In West Virginia, a proposed bill calls for 1 minute of silence at the beginning of each school day. Ohio's proposal does not specify how long the moment of silence must last. 7 pets suspected dead after barricaded man starts fire: Police Opponents of similar measures have argued it promotes prayer in school. Ohio's proposal has bipartisan support, and is sponsored by state Reps. Gary Click (R-Vickery) and Eric Synenberg (D-Beachwood). Click here to follow the bill's status on the Ohio House website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
‘Conceived children' could be dependents under new Ohio House bill
File photo of an ultrasound. (Stock photo from Getty Images.) Ohio taxpayers could claim 'conceived children' as dependents on their taxes under a bill recently introduced in the General Assembly. The bill began after state Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery, championed a 'personhood' bill that would have created rights for embryos and fetuses at the moment of conception. That bill wasn't moved by the legislature, but a critic of the bill asked Click if the bill allowed embryos and fetuses to be claimed on taxes. 'Somebody that was trying to nitpick at me actually gave me a good idea,' Click said. And thus came a bill last year with similar language on creating tax credits for 'conceived children,' which has been reintroduced this year as Ohio House Bill 87. Click said it's had time for improvements that weren't available in the short time frame the bill had at the end of last General Assembly. 'We took some input from some folks that we received last year and tried to improve it,' Click told the Capital Journal. The bill language adds certain items like cribs and pack-and-plays to the list of things that are tax-exempt, in an attempt to give breathing room to expectant families, Click said. 'These seem like little things, but when you're just a little couple starting off, every cent matters,' he said. An announcement of the reintroduction of the bill cited a 2022 Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of health costs related to pregnancy, child birth and postpartum care, which found costs averaged $18,865 nationally, with nearly $3,000 in out-of-pocket costs. But the bill also allows couples, and the pregnant individual if a couple is filing separately, to include 'each child conceived, including each child conceived by assisted reproduction that has been placed inside the taxpayer or taxpayer's spouse's uterus' as a dependent on their yearly taxes. Pregnancies lost to 'spontaneous miscarriage' are also included in the bill in a change since the last bill was introduced. Click said he 'thought that might be a little heartless to exclude them.' In including pregnancies conceived through 'assisted reproduction,' Click said he wanted at least state tax support of a child to 'begin at implantation.' 'They don't become a dependent after they're born, they become a dependent as soon as you know the child,' Click said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX One exception made in the bill is to any pregnancy terminated through abortion, something critics have said flies in the face of the constitutional amendment passed in November 2023 that established the right to abortion in the Ohio Constitution. 'If you think a tax credit can undo a constitutional amendment, you need to go back to school,' Click said in response. Currently, in order to claim dependents on state taxes, they have to be included in a 'schedule of dependents,' which must include the names of the dependent, their Social Security Numbers, their dates of birth, and the relationship to the tax filer, according to the Ohio Department of Taxation. It's not clear how the language in the schedule of dependents would change under the bill to include fetuses who would not yet have a Social Security Number or birth date. In terms of proving the conception, Click likened that information to business travel mileage, which would only need to be proven in the case of an audit. But he said that a doctor's official notes or medical diagnosis could possibly be used to prove the time of the conception. Blaine G. Saito, an assistant professor of law at the Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law with expertise in tax law and policy, said there are a fair amount of items on tax forms that 'do not always have reporting,' for example, cash transactions. 'People are just supposed to report honestly,' Saito said. Saito also noted prior to a federal change in 1986 that required Social Security Numbers in dependent filings, 'there were a lot of dependents, and they suddenly disappeared.' 'A lot of the tax system then requires people to make estimates in general and report in good faith, and quite a bit may not be subject to third party reporting or easily found,' Saito said. There may be ways to prove 'conceived children,' he said, 'though a requirement to 'document' it when claiming the dependent may be considered onerous.' H.B. 87 was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee earlier this month, where it will be subject to hearings before a committee vote can bring it to the House floor. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ohio lawmakers want to allow parents to claim ‘conceived children' on income taxes
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio lawmakers are reviving an effort to allow parents to claim 'conceived children' as dependents on their state income taxes. Reps. Gary Click (R-Vickery) and Roy Klopfenstein (R-Haviland) introduced House Bill 87, named the Strategic Tax Options for Raising Kids (STORK) Act, last week. The legislation would allow Ohioans to include embryos or fetuses conceived during the taxable year as dependents, starting on Jan. 1, 2026. If a taxpayer and their spouse were to file separate returns, only the expecting mother could claim the embryo or fetus. Lawmaker: 'Trust me' property tax relief on the way 'The costs of starting and raising a family begin before childbirth,' Click said in a news release. 'This bill will provide young, working middle-income families with a tax break they need and deserve.' HB 87 is similar to a bill Click introduced last year under the same name, which ultimately did not pass by the end of the legislative session. The new bill features a few changes, including clarifying that embryos or fetuses lost to miscarriage could still be claimed as dependents, but those that are aborted could not. It also specifies children conceived by 'assisted reproduction,' such as IVF, would count as dependents. Click said he got the idea for the bill when he introduced the Personhood Act in July 2022, which would have added to the Ohio Revised Code that personhood of an individual is declared from the moment of conception. 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 previously told NBC4. 'And I thought, 'Well, you know, that actually does make sense.'' Inside the Whitehall police division that current and former officers have called toxic While Klopfenstein said the legislation is a step toward ensuring Ohio is 'the best place to raise a family,' critics of the bill have stated it is an attempt to classify fetuses as people and undermine abortion rights in the state. Abortion Forward Deputy Director Jaime Miracle called the bill a 'sneak attack' on reproductive rights and said there are numerous other ways legislators could help local families, such as addressing paid family leave and childcare deserts. 'Rep. Click's true agenda is clear,' Miracle said. 'His goal is to undermine reproductive healthcare access. He doesn't actually care about Ohio families.' Click said last year that the effort is not an attempt to recognize legal personhood for fetuses, and that a bill cannot undo the state's constitutional amendment that codifies Ohioans' right to abortion. 'This could be pro-life or pro-choice,' he said in August. '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.' Thousands of IRS employees fired as federal layoffs continue The lawmakers cited statistics from the Peterson-Kaiser Family Foundation, which state the average cost of having a baby including pregnancy, delivery and postpartum care in the U.S. was $18,865 in 2022, and for those enrolled in healthcare plans, the average out-of-pocket cost was $2,854. The STORK Act was referred to the House's Ways and Means Committee, where it awaits its first hearing. The bill currently has 11 Republican cosponsors. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
