Politics & Government

Bringing Tax Records To The Fight Against Child Abduction

Rep. Joe Courtney holds conference at New London Police Department to discuss legislation to help locate children unlawfully taken by parents

When the topic of child abduction is brought up, Connecticut associate child advocate Mickey Kramer said today, people tend to think of dramatic cases of kidnapping by a stranger. Over 200,000 cases annually, however, involve a child being abducted by a parent. Kramer said the experience remains a traumatic one for the child.

“Often these situations involve custody conflicts and family disputes that lead to children in danger,” she said. “Most of us would agree that each and every step should be made to recover abducted children.”

Kramer was one of the speakers at the New London Police Department Headquarters this afternoon at a press conference announcing new legislation before Congress. Rep. Joe Courtney is one of the sponsors of the Recovering Missing Children Act, along with fellow Democrat Pete Stark of California and Republicans Erik Paulsen of Minnesota and Patrick Tiberi of Ohio. Courtney said that an audit by the Treasury Department found that in about half of 1,700 cases they studied, a family member who had abducted a child claimed the child as an exemption on their taxes.

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“It kind of takes your breath away at the chutzpah of abductors who might be able to claim an exemption for a child that they don’t have lawful custody of,” he said.

Courtney said these tax forms include the child’s Social Security number as well as the address where they are residing. However, due to confidentiality rules related to the records of the Internal Revenue Service, law enforcement investigators may be barred from obtaining the documents showing where the abducted child is. Courtney said there are about 20 exemptions in the federal tax code where the government can access confidential tax information in the case of an emergency, and that the new legislation would allow police to receive the tax information of a suspected abductor after obtaining a court order.

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“This costs the government and the taxpayers nothing, and I would argue that in fact we save resources because it would allow local law enforcement to basically have another tool in their toolbox, cut to the chase, and obtain information,” said Courtney.

Several members of the New London Police Department attended the conference, along with Sergeant Anthony Garcia of the Groton Town Police Department and Detective Sergeant Joseph DePasquale of the Waterbury Police Department. Deputy Chief Marshall Segar of the New London Police Department said law enforcement agencies cooperate on a local, state, and federal level to locate missing children. He said the loophole in the tax code “did not necessarily protect abductors but did not reveal them either.”

“From a local law enforcement official, we are always welcome to receiving funding and favorable legislation from Washington,” he said.

Courtney said the number of co-sponsors of the bill has increased to 28, and that the legislation is currently before the House Ways and Means Committee.

“It hopefully would be a nice consensus bill so when we go back in September we can get some movement,” he said.


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