Taxman or Taxwoman, Part 2

This Blog's posting of 24 January 2006 commented on the Internal Revenue Service Office of Chief Counsel's Memorandum Number 200603025, which in turn opined on the deductibility as a medical expense of a taxpayer's gender reassignment surgery costs. Few of us tax cognoscenti doubted that the matter would eventually be brought to court by the taxpayer involved, and though Chief Counsel Memoranda and similar taxpayer-specific IRS pronouncement are always sanitized of taxpayer identification information, the taxpayer's identity was one very ill-kept secret amongst the tax practitioners and pundits.

Yesterday, the U.S. Tax Court released its opinion in the case captioned O’Donnabhain v. Commissioner. To synopsize this very lengthy opinion:

The taxpayer, born of the male gender and named Robert Donovan, decided to become a woman and, to that end, changed his name to Rhiannon G. O’Donnabhain and underwent so-called gender reassignment surgery. Donovan/O’Donnabhain claimed, as a medical expense deduction on his/her tax return, the not inconsequential health care bills associated with the latter. The IRS disallowed the deduction, Donovan/O’Donnabhain disputed the IRS's decision in the Tax Court, and the Tax Court ruled that the medical expenses for the "gender reassignment surgery" were deductible, but that the doctor bills and associated expenses for the breast augmentation were elective cosmetic surgery and thus not deductible.


My take on it:

The Court's ruling was correct and appropriate.

I personally believe that this so-called "gender identity disorder" diagnosis is, at best, a misguided politically-correct classification concocted by the medical profession.

And, it follows, that I am not too keen on having the taxpayers subsidize this so-called gender reassignment surgery (which is mutilation, plain and simple).

The failing in this case was with the medical profession, which went into the tank for certain sinister forces by treating a mental disorder as a physical one. This, in my view, is analogous to treating appendicitis not by removing the inflamed appendix, but by excision of the intestines which are inflaming the appendix. The American Medical Association's perversion of its craft sets dangerous precedent.


But the IRS should not be engaging in medical practice or medical diagnosis or the dispensation of medical advice. This means that the IRS should not issue blanket prohibitions as to what is or is not medically necessary for any given patient. This, I believe, is a far greater evil than this "gender identity disorder" hoax, which must be laid at the feet of the medical profession.

[The pro-homosexual lobby has already begun to claim this tax case as a victory for their abominable agenda. Take my word for it, or google it; I do not now wish to glorify their nefarious agenda by linking to any of their many postings on the case.].

As for Robert Donovan / Rhiannon O’Donnabhain, it is noted that he/she (a) seems to have been prompt and candid with discharging his/her tax return reporting and filing duties; (b) seems to be a reasonably well-functioning employee in the workplace, and seems to have been so even as he/she was transitioning from male self-identity to female self-identity; and (c) seems to have left no basis for any hint or suggestion that his/her past service in the U.S. Coast Guard was anything other than honorable. In the final analysis, Donovan/O’Donnabhain is more by far a victim than a wrongdoer.