Hunting down loopholes

SOMETIMES WRITING EDITORIALS really is like shooting fish in a barrel. Or, in this case, like shooting rare antelope in the company of an expert guide at a fenced ranch.

Federal law lets hunters take tax deductions for most of their hunting-trip expenses if they donate their stuffed trophy animals to “museums,” most of which are simply dusty warehouses. In financial terms, the law is trivial, costing the federal Treasury a few million dollars a year. For audacity, however, the law is unsurpassed.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) proposes to sew up this loophole, removing provisions that let hunters deduct safari travel, luxe hotels and hunting guides and restricting their deductions to the market value of their trophy kills. The amendment, which is attached to the Senate’s version of the federal tax relief bill but not the House’s, will need the support of Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Bakersfield), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, to become law. The measure could come up next month in conference committee meetings led by Thomas and Grassley.

There’s no shortage of stuffed animals, which real museums usually don’t want. The donations often end up warehoused in rural and little-visited exhibits, where they may be auctioned back to the original shooter after a couple of years for a fraction of the value of the deduction. That’s because the deduction amount is usually cooked up by the hunter and a hired appraiser on the basis of replacement cost, i.e., the whole hunt, not on the animal’s market value.

Grassley’s proposal would cut the deduction to fair market value, requiring that examples of recent sales be attached. For taxidermy deductions over $5,000, the Internal Revenue Service would supply its own appraisal. That would certainly cut down deductions now claimed for common deer species, which are as likely to be hit by a car as stalked by a hunter.

The proposal makes no judgment on the ethics of hunting. But the deduction has been featured in schemes to put a legal veneer on the shooting of endangered species abroad. Many more of the taxidermy deductions result from so-called canned hunts, in which exotic imported animals, including Barbary sheep and African oryx, are raised on fenced ranches, then shot by hunters guided to spots where the animals are regularly fed. The U.S. Humane Society has documented these “guaranteed” kills; traditional hunters are rightly aghast at them.

Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) introduced a bill in February to ban such canned hunts in the U.S. It went nowhere, but he should keep trying. Fighting for fairness in the tax code and on the hunt -- now that’s a slogan any politician could be proud of.