PRESIDENTIAL RACE Election fund box on tax form often gets neglected

This year, three major candidates opted out of the fund and its spending limits.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
DALLAS -- If you're hurrying to finish your taxes before Thursday's deadline, you're probably not taking much time to ponder the first question on the tax form, the checkoff box for the Presidential Election Campaign Fund.
That line asks if you want $3 of your taxes to go to the fund. Saying yes doesn't reduce your refund or cost you more in taxes.
But more and more, people are responding with a resounding "No."
The percentage of tax returns indicating a contribution to the fund has dropped steadily over the years, to 10.5 percent in 2003 from 27.5 percent in 1976, the Internal Revenue Service says.
The fund is supposed to reduce presidential candidates' dependence on large political contributions and place candidates on equal financial footing.
But that didn't happen in the recent presidential primary campaign. For the first time, three candidates in the primaries turned down the fund's money.
Experts worry that development will further erode support for the tax checkoff until the program becomes insolvent. The tax checkoff is the only source of money for the fund, which goes to qualified candidates in the primaries, the major parties' general-election candidates, and national party committees.
No limits
The decision of President Bush, Howard Dean and John Kerry late last year to turn down public funds meant they didn't have to adhere to the $45 million campaign spending limit in the primaries. Bush and Dean relied on strong fund-raising, and Kerry mortgaged his home.
Bush's and Kerry's campaigns say they will accept the fund's grant of $75 million each for the general election. That's all they're allowed to spend on campaigning, but leftover contributions from the primaries can be used to pay for lawyers and accountants to comply with campaign finance laws.
A report on the public financing system in September was prescient.
"The current system for financing presidential nominating campaigns is in jeopardy," said the study, by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Campaign Finance Institute in Washington. "Unless the system is changed, the presidential nominating process overwhelmingly will come to favor candidates who can afford to pass up public money and thus avoid spending limits."
John Green, a political science professor at the University of Akron, was research director of the institute's task force.
"Last year, I was worried because the system could fall apart, and now, I'm upset because the system has fallen apart," Green said. "The system has broken down when you have the major candidates not participating in the public financing system [for primaries]. The only people who do are the also-rans.
"So you can legitimately ask, 'Why should I check off on the 1040 if it's not going to have any effect on the major candidates?'" Green said.
Recommendations
The task force called for:
UIncreasing the spending limit for candidates in the primaries to the same amount as the general election.
URaising the voluntary checkoff on tax returns from $3 to $5 for individuals and from $6 to $10 for couples filing a joint return.
UDeveloping educational and other programs aimed at taxpayers, tax preparation services and tax software providers.
"A lot of people do their taxes with computer programs," Green said. "On most of those programs, the default is not to check off, so it's set that if you don't do anything, it's not checked off. The way people do their taxes seems to be biased against the checkoff."
Some people apparently think checking the box would reduce their tax refund or increase what they owe.
"There needs to be an education campaign," Green said. "Many of us believe that more people would check the box if they really understood what it was about."