[EL] another metric for measuring relative support for each party

[Paul Lehto]

The federal campaign check-off on Form 1040 does not allow taxpayers
to direct money to the party of their choice, unlike the state
programs Richard Winger tracks below.  Nevertheless, I would suggest
that data regarding the federal campaign checkoff on Form 1040 is
fairly misleading, based on my experience with income tax preparation
businesses I have personal knowledge about.

These income tax preparers I know of have "no" as the default for
everyone's 1040, they don't ask the taxpayer for their preference, so
the taxpayer has to insist on checking "yes." As a result, well over
95% of the returns prepared (mostly for "ordinary folk") check "no" on
the costless contribution.   This certainly depresses the amount of
federal campaign monies collected through the 1040 check box, and
doesn't represent a preference expressed by the taxpayer in many
cases.

While other tax preparers may possibly have a default answer of yes, I
have my doubts about the total numbers of returns filed by those
preparers. I strongly suspect that overall support for public campaign
financing is under-represented by the 1040 checkoff system.

Most of my thoughts here would not necessarily apply to undermine the
validity of the data Richard Winger is collecting, since an
affirmative choice by a taxpayer to support a given political party
would certainly be something tax preparers would normally consult with
clients on.  However, if a significant number of tax preparers fail to
consult with their clients on their partisan contribution preferences
for state income tax purposes, this would depress contributions across
the board.  In addition, the state data could also be skewed with a
partisan bias if more Republican citizens get asked for their
preferences by tax preparers, or vice versa.

Paul Lehto, J.D.

On 8/24/11, Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The September 1, 2011 Ballot Access News (a paper publication) has data on
> how many state income tax payers chose to send a small donation to the party
> of the taxpayer's choice.  I have been gathering this data since 2000, for
> the 13 states in which the state income tax form gives taxpayers this
> choice.
>
> For the tax returns that came in this year (generally in the first half of
> the year), Republicans received the lowest amount they have ever received
> from those same states, for the period 2000 to the present.  Democrats, all
> eleven years, have always received more donations than Republicans, but in
> 2011 the ratio between the two amounts was more heavily Democratic (compared
> to Republican) than ever before.
>
> Also noteworthy is that donations to minor parties tripled, compared to last
> year.  Anyone who doesn't already subscribe to Ballot Access News can e-mail
> me privately and ask for that edition.  Just be sure to include a postal
> address for yourself.
>


-- 
Paul R Lehto, J.D.
P.O. Box 1
Ishpeming, MI  49849
lehto.paul at gmail.com
906-204-4026 (cell)