The Tax Break for Children, Except the Ones Who Need It Most – By Jason DeParle (New York Times) / Dec 16 2019
MONROE, La. — With two children and a third on the way, Ciera Dismuke worked five jobs last year while earning just under $15,000. Although the Trump administration often boasts that it doubled the federal child tax credit to $2,000 per child, Ms. Dismuke, like millions of Americans, earned too little to fully qualify. Instead, she got $934 a child, an increase of just $75.
Letha Bradford, a teacher’s aide, qualified for an equally small increase, despite a household budget so tight that she listens to her son’s high school football games outside the stadium to save the admissions fee. Michael Spielberg, a Sam’s Club attendant, also received only a partial credit, while his son, Josh, who has Asperger’s syndrome, doubled up on classes, hoping to graduate early and turn his job bagging groceries into full-time work.
“Food has been a bit of a struggle,” said Josh, 16.
The 2017 tax bill, President Trump’s main domestic achievement, doubled the maximum credit in the two-decade-old program and extended it to families earning as much as $400,000 a year (up from $110,000). The credit now costs the federal government $127 billion a year — far more than better-known programs like the earned-income tax credit ($65 billion) and food stamps ($60 billion).
While Republicans say the increase shows concern for ordinary families, 35 percent of children fail to receive the full $2,000 because their parents earn too little, researchers at Columbia University found. A quarter get a partial sum and 10 percent get nothing. Among those excluded from the full credit are half of Latinos, 53 percent of blacks and 70 percent of children with single mothers.
“The child tax credit is the largest federal expenditure for children, but it excludes from the full benefit the kids who need it the most,” said Sophie Collyer, a member of the research team at Columbia, who analyzed the program with her colleagues Christopher Wimer and David Harris. “This is a significant flaw in its design that’s at odds with the administration’s claims about the achievements of the tax bill.”
Because the credit rises with earnings, a single parent with two children has to earn more than $30,000 a year to collect the full amount.
Republicans say that the credit is mostly a tax cut, not an anti-poverty program — so rightly favors taxpayers — and that the needy have other sources of aid. But a majority of congressional Democrats have backed a bill to increase the credit and include both the working and nonworking poor, essentially creating a guaranteed income for families with children.
Continue to article: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-tax-break-for-children-except-the-ones-who-need-it-most/ar-BBY3Sk7?ocid=spartanntp
