Should Vegans Get A Tax Break?

June 4, 2007

PeTA is calling for a tax break for vegetarians. As a vegetarian I’d welcome a tax break. Moreover, I agree that vegetarianism is a good option for everyday people to make a big difference in preventing or slowing climate change. As PeTA puts it,

“Although most Americans can’t afford to pay upward of $20,000 for a new hybrid car, everyone can go vegetarian. It’s the best and most accessible way for people at any income level to combat cruelty to animals as well as reduce their global-warming emissions, their health care costs, and with your help, their taxes.”

But I doubt this tax deduction will ever become a reality. There are just too many omnivores in Congress. Bring It On points out some other problems with this idea:

  1. Some meat-eaters will lie about being vegan to get the tax break.
  2. The hybrid tax deduction is a joke and is phasing out.

Better ideas for stopping global warming and encouraging veganism:

  1. Tax break for buying a used hybrid. Currently the deduction only applies to new car purchases.
  2. Tax break for using public transportation.
  3. Increase tax on emissions. If you pollute, you pay. (Instead of just tax breaks for emission reduction do the opposite and tax emission production.)
  4. Include vegetarian recipes on the Food Stamp Connection website and other government food and health websites, like the USDA School Lunch Program Recipe List (a pathetic list of recipes, I’ve got more in ONE cookbook than are listed here. And I’ve got about 20 cookbooks).
    1. Here’s the link to add a vegan recipe to the Food Stamp recipe index.
    2. Or mail them a vegetarian cookbook to:
      • Food Stamp Nutrition Connection
        Food and Nutrition Information Center
        National Agricultural Library
        10301 Baltimore Avenue, Suite 105
        Beltsville, MD 20705

I am mailing them a copy of Dining with Friends. (We have an extra copy).

Update June 6, 2007: For the record, the Food Stamp Connection Recipe Database has a whooping 100 vegetarian recipes.  Yes, there’s a tad of sarcasm in that statement. I am surprised that the number is so high, but I’m still disappointed. 100 is not enough. For example, we are not foodies, yet our cookbook collection contains about 20 cookbooks, each with at least 50-100 recipes, such as this one:

Share/Save/Bookmark

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Environmentalism, Food, Lifestyle 

« I am because my little dog knows me.
How to Read a Girl’s Mind »

Comments

5 Responses to “Should Vegans Get A Tax Break?”

  1. Jul on June 4th, 2007 12:51 pm

    I think vegetarians should get a tax break via a tiered food tax system - the healthier the food, the lower the tax. Unhealthy foods (such as meat) that (1) use up more environmental resources and (2) lead to higher healthcare burdens for the people who eat them should be taxed more than healthy, local produce. It makes sense from a public health point of view, an environmental point of view, and a common sense point of view.

  2. Elaine Vigneault on June 4th, 2007 2:39 pm

    That’s an interesting idea, Jul, a sales tax rather than an income tax deduction. Much easier to implement. Perhaps the standard deduction could be raised in order to compensate for the sales tax.

    Course, that would still disproportionately affect poor people, which is why most states don’t add sales tax to food. But… if the food stamp program were modified enough to account for the increase in food prices due to the tax, then it could work!

    It makes a whole lot of sense, really, because people obviously need more personal incentive to eat healthier foods. Currently many avoid fresh fruit and produce in favor of fast food simply because fast food is so cheap.

  3. Gina Hundley on June 6th, 2007 2:16 pm

    Hi Elaine

    Your post “Should Vegans Get a Tax Break,” which mentioned our site was brought to my attention today by someone in my office who was running a google search for “national Agricultural Library”.

    Specifically this part:

    4 Include vegetarian recipes on the Food Stamp Connection website and other government food and health websites, like the USDA School Lunch Program Recipe List (a pathetic list of recipes, I’ve got more in ONE cookbook than are listed here. And I’ve got about 20 cookbooks).

    1. Here’s the link to add a vegan recipe to the Food Stamp recipe index.
    2. Or mail them a vegetarian cookbook to:
    * Food Stamp Nutrition Connection
    Food and Nutrition Information Center
    National Agricultural Library
    10301 Baltimore Avenue, Suite 105
    Beltsville, MD 20705

    I can’t really comment at all on the USDA School Lunch Program Recipe list (or the idea of a tax break for vegans for that matter) but I did want to direct you toward this URL, which is a list of the 100 recipes that come up if you run a search for “vegetarian” recipes in the Food Stamp Nutrition Connection Recipe Finder:
    http://recipefinder.nal.usda.gov/index.php?mode=pick_search&audience=2&cost_serving_num=&cost_recipe_num=&submit=Search

    Of the 105 “entrée” recipes, 36 are vegetarian (and I discovered that three more could be if we added “or vegetable broth” after “Chicken broth” in the ingredient list….). A handful of these are vegan, but we did not build into the database the ability to search specifically for vegan recipes. We should have! We can do this, but it will take some time.

    From your wording: “Include vegetarian recipes on the Food Stamp Connection website and other government food and health websites…” your readers might infer that there are not currently vegetarian recipes on our site. Not sure if you have a lot of readers or just a few (my own blog is read regularly by… my sister, my friend from 8th grade, my sister-in-law and… probably no one else) but if you’re writing about “my” project, I care!

    We only have 409 recipes total, and hope to add more some day soon, but for now, our biggest priority is translating these recipes into Spanish to expand access to this tool to Spanish speakers.

    You are welcome to send a copy of the book you mentioned, but be advised that most of the recipes in the database come from state and local Food Stamp Nutrition Education providers, were developed with public funding (specifically funding from the Food Stamp Program) and therefore are in the public domain. In the past, we have had heaps trouble getting permission from other organizations (both non-profit and commercial) to use their recipes that we tend to avoid that route if possible. This, combined with the fact that we’re not planning to add more recipes this year (as we’re working on translating the existing ones to Spanish) lead me to advise you that if/when we could include any of them might be… a long time from now. We’re just a two-woman show J

    Anyway- no need to post this on your blog unless you want to. I just thought I’d let you know. Other than that, I found your blog fun to read, particularly posts involving your little dog and/or The Riches. But goodness gracious, you really should stop calling yourself fat!

    Okay- that’s all- have a great day!

    Gina Hundley, RD

    Team Leader
    Food Stamp Nutrition Connection
    Food and Nutrition Information Center
    Beltsville, MD 20705-2351
    Web: http://foodstamp.nal.usda.gov

  4. Elaine Vigneault on June 6th, 2007 2:23 pm

    Regarding my readers:
    I have about 10,000 website visits per month and over 15,000 page views per month. Of that, a pathetic eleven pageviews for this particular post today and who knows how many readers elsewhere in syndication? I wouldn’t worry too much that people will react in some huge outpouring of vegan cookbooks. But if they did, how bad would that be, really?

    Thank you for the information and the feedback :)

  5. Elaine Vigneault on June 6th, 2007 3:07 pm

    Other vegetarian related government websites Gina recommends:

    The vegetarian resource page on the Food and Nutrition Information Center’s Web page:
    http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/nal_display/index.php?info_center=4&tax_level=2&tax_subject=257&topic_id=1359

    The Food and Nutrition Information Centers Vegetarian Resource List (I believe this is being updated soon): http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/pubs/bibs/gen/vegetarian.htm

    The Vegetarian diets page from MyPyramid.gov
    http://www.mypyramid.gov/tips_resources/vegetarian_diets.html

1 Trackbacks to “Should Vegans Get A Tax Break?”

  1. vegoftheweek » Blog Archive » Midweek Links: Vegetarian Tax Break on April 16th, 2008 8:42 pm

    [...] A blogger’s Response To The Tax Break Idea (elainevigneault) [...]

Got something to say?