From a humane society point of view, I think this would be a terrible idea. There are already problems with people "hoarding" pets for what they believe are altruistic reasons. Now add a financial incentive and you have a recipe for potential abuse and mistreatment of animals on a huge scale. Instead, maybe we should find a way to give people incentive to take better care of their existing companion animals, not reward them for obtaining more under questionable conditions.

A comparison was made to the existing deduction per child. There was a time during our more agricultural-focused past when the government saw a benefit to encouraging large families and gave tax incentives for having children. That time has passed, yet the incentive remains, burdening social systems and infrastructures with larger family units at the lowest socio-economic levels.

But there is no economic or industrial advantage to encouraging the breeding or hoarding of more companion animals.

I love my four-legged companions and they enrich my life in ways I could not have imagined before having them. The ones who find and adopt me always seem to have special needs when I have special abundance. And while having some extra money in my pocket based on my outlay for food and medical supplies might be nice, I would not want it at the expense of the welfare of thousands upon thousands of animals who I fear would be adopted and then neglected.