My tweets

[ksmith]

• Sun, 10:40: RT @tbogg: Ann Romney's Dressage Horse Has a Great Health Care Plan - Politics - The Atlantic Wire http://t.co/870VWOqH
• Sun, 10:42: RT @ce_murphy: I don't understand how I can simultaneously want to get rid of all the STUFF & also remain so attached to it. *sigh* ...
• Sun, 11:56: Summer’s first lily http://t.co/EsWoLs4I

Comments

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

I could wish the Atlantic Wire writer hadn't been so snarky about horses and dressage, thus evoking the almost-legitimate wrath of horse people.

There is no legitimacy, in my opinion, to attempting a $77,000 deduction for the horse. It's not a business (yet; it might be if they do embryo transplants, but they have no firm plan), and it's not the kind of horse that qualifies as therapy (it's a show horse. You do equine therapy at equine therapy centers, on therapy horses, not Grand Prix dressage horses.)

If the deduction is medical (as some say) then it should be the cost of weekly therapy at an accredited equine therapy center. Not the cost of owning a top-level show horse and having it shown under your name as owner, while you sit on it now and then as therapy. Same as if your doctor prescribes cardiac therapy, you go to a center for that; you don't get to deduct the cost of a golf club membership and playing golf with your buddies and walking instead of using the cart as a medical expense.

If the deduction is horse business, there needs to be some kind of evidence that the horse is a business. I know people in various ends of the horse business--have for years. Thought of going into horses myself back when I was young and had more energy. One dressage horse does not make a business, no matter how stellar. That's a tax shelter (also knew people doing that with horses--the sudden surge of breeders into this breed or that, or a certain performance area, was a sign of "Let's hide some of our money by saying we're horse breeders.")

What it looks like to me (and I've looked beyond this article) is that Mrs. Romney likes to ride horses, likes to own a really pretty horse or so, and her not-overly-honest husband has found a way, he thinks, to claim the horse as either a medical deduction or a business deduction or both. If Romney bought a business losing $77,000/year, he'd sell the it off...since he doesn't, it's not a business to him. It's an indulgence for his wife. If the horse places in the Olympics, it's publicity for him and his wife.