Action alert: child tax credit
As you probably know if you have kids, you can claim a child tax credit of up to $1,000 per child. As you might not realize if you’re not low-income, this credit is only partially refundable, meaning that the lowest-income families don’t benefit at all from it. The threshold for partial refundability started at $10,000 a year, but goes up each year with inflation, even though the wages of low-earning families often don’t keep up with inflation.
The House passed AMT patch bill includes a modest expansion of the refundability of the child tax credit, pushing it down to $8,500 a year. This would reach an additional 13 million low-income kids. The Senate Finance Committee is deciding this week whether to include such a provision in their bill.
If you can call your Senator and ask him or her to support this provision, it could make a big difference.
Here is some background on the Child Tax
Credit from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:
FAMILIES HELPED BY THE CHILD TAX CREDIT EXPANSION WORK HARD IN LOW-PAYING
JOBS: Nursing Home Aides, Cooks, Pre-School Teachers, and Construction Workers
Would Get a Boost By Sharon Parrott and Arloc Sherman
IMPROVING THE REFUNDABLE CHILD TAX CREDIT: An Important Step Toward Reducing
Child Poverty By Aviva Aron-Dine
November 14th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
My Senators don’t serve on the Finance committee right now, but I emailed them both to keep their eyes peeled as the bill comes out.
November 15th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Thanks for putting this on my radar and for the info. V. important.