Welfare Mothers Gain Support in State Battle Over Tax Rights

Welfare mothers fighting to obtain the same tax rights as other single parents won support from two State Board of Equalization members Thursday but could not get a majority of the five-member panel to reach a final decision until next month.

At issue for the board was whether welfare mothers could file state income tax returns as “heads of households,” a designation automatically entitling most of them to a $137 annual renters’ credit from the state.

A sister agency, the Franchise Tax Board, had already ruled that the head of household status could only be used by single parents who provided over half of the cost of maintaining their household. Welfare mothers, the agency said, could not qualify because the cost of maintaining their households was borne by the state in the form of welfare payments.

But State Board of Equalization members Conway Collis and John Davies, substituting for Controller Gray Davis, urged their colleagues to reverse the Franchise Tax Board’s decision.

“The Franchise Tax Board is clearly wrong on the law and on its decision,” Collis said. “(Its) action is insulting to women.

Both Collis and Davies noted that in divorced households, a single mother could still file as the head of the household even when the entire cost of supporting her children was paid by her ex-husband. The father in turn could claim the children as dependents on his income tax.

“The same principle I think would apply in this case,” Davies said.

Two other board members, Chairman Paul Carpenter and William Bennett, asked for more time to study the issue. A fifth member, Ernest J. Dronenburg Jr., was absent when the matter came up for a vote.