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October 21, 2024
JD Vance and Kamala Harris have at least one thing in common: proposals to expand the child tax credit (CTC). Currently, the CTC offers households up to $2,000 per child under the age of 17. It phases in as wages exceed $2,500 (an incentive to work) and phases out for high-income workers (a disincentive to…
October 18, 2024
Earlier this week, scholars from the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Niskanen Center, and other right-of-center organizations issued a memo calling for pro-family tax reforms during the upcoming debate over the future of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. While reasonable arguments can be made for most of their proposed reforms, their recommendation to phase in…
August 7, 2024
Last week, the Senate rejected a child tax credit revision that had bipartisan House support. It would have enabled more of the credit to be refundable to families with no employment income. Republican senators voted against it because they believed that providing unconstrained income to poor households would reduce their work effort. This was one of…
April 17, 2024
The Wyden-Smith tax bill, which combines an expanded child tax credit (CTC) with a variety of business tax breaks, has been in limbo in the Senate for the past three months. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised to bring up the bill if there’s enough support, but so far, these votes have not been forthcoming…
April 9, 2024
The Child Tax Credit is a tax benefit available to many American families for the purpose of reducing their federal income tax liability. It’s specifically designed to help offset the cost of raising children. The CTC of today, however, differs starkly from its pre-pandemic structure. Many economists, including Kevin Corinth, think that the post-pandemic changes were a step…
January 29, 2024
The Wyden-Smith proposed tax legislation would make four changes to the Child Tax Credit (CTC). First, it would increase the cap on the refundable portion of the CTC, eventually to the same amount as the maximum non-refundable CTC. Second, it would begin indexing the maximum non-refundable CTC with inflation. Third, it would apply a one-year lookback for…
August 14, 2023
In 2008, former White House Chief of Staff and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel famously said what has come to be known as Rahm’s rule: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that [is] it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” It’s clear that…
August 9, 2023
The expiration of the American Rescue Plan Act at the end of 2021 brought with it the end of the fully refundable Child Tax Credit (CTC). The CTC has since returned to its pre-pandemic form, phasing-in at 15 percent of earnings beyond $2,500, up to a maximum of $1,600 in a refundable CTC per child…
May 4, 2023
Work is one of the foundations of American life. Almost always, being employed and earning income gives individuals the opportunity, responsibility, and community they need to flourish. The broader importance of work can’t be overstated. A larger workforce also contributes significantly to our general prosperity allowing us to afford, among other things, a more effective…