Republicans Want the Child Tax Credit to Include Unborn Babies
The parents have the ability to claim the tax credit for the pregnancy once the mother gives birth to the child.
The Providing for Life Act would allow people to apply the child tax credit to their unborn babies:
Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, is leading a package of bills in the House called the Providing For Life Act, an ambitious attempt at overhauling the federal government’s family care system.
Hinson told Fox News Digital her legislation “charts the policy course for a culture of life in America.”
“By expanding the child tax credit to include the unborn and providing additional support to working families, empowering women to care for their babies regardless of socioeconomic status or zip code and improving access to community resources, we can make a meaningful difference for those in need,” Hinson said.
“These provisions, and others championed by the pro-life community, will ensure we protect the most vulnerable and make critical investments in the long-term well-being of our families.”
The parents have the ability to claim the tax credit for the pregnancy once the mother gives birth to the child. They would also gain “access to regular child tax credit in the current year.”
The bill places a $3,500 cap for children under five. The cap for children 6-17 would be $4,500.
The parents have to be employed.
Democrats did not allow the $2,000 tax credit for each dependent during COVID to become permanent.
The package also includes:
Other measures in the package include an option allowing parents to draw from their Social Security to finance up to three months of paid parental leave and enhancing certain benefits for new mothers. It also includes incentives for states to set guidelines on fathers paying for part of a woman’s pregnancy costs and would force cooperation with any child support requirements to receive SNAP food benefits.
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In addition to more economic benefits for young families, Hinson’s legislation seeks to provide expecting parents with support programs on college campuses and at pregnancy resource centers and aims to establish “a federal clearinghouse of resources” and bolster support for social service programs at places of worship.
For parents in low-income or other vulnerable communities, it “funds local demonstration programs providing volunteer mentoring and peer support services.”
If this is a way to stop the murder of unborn human beings then so be it. Anything to stop abortion.
But remember, just because Roe v. Wade is gone, we still have to change the hearts and minds of people.
As a former hardcore pro-abortion person it can be done. Trust me.
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“Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, is leading a package of bills in the House called the Providing For Life Act, an ambitious attempt at overhauling0 the federal government’s family care system.”
Why is there one in the first place? My copy of the Constitution doesn’t list it. And, don’t go using “the general welfare”, because the meaning of that noun has changed over the years.
In a perfect world, a child tax credit means sending less of your hard-earned money to the Treasury to spend on wars on the other side of the world and instead you spend it on your child. But of course, it would be unfair to others who are ineligible — actually, unfair to the politician who would be denied the votes that welfare brings — so the federal government takes it upon themselves to make everyone happy. And all it costs is a slice of our freedom, a price all politicians are willing to sacrifice and pay.
Now tie it to being married to the father of the child.
I agree on the qualification. We also need mandatory paternity testing v just putting someone’s name on the birth certificate as the Father.
Going further, no more compelling a man to pay for a child not his.
Well yeah, that’s the point of the paternity testing. Make it retroactive as well for any claim of child support and end the ‘presumption’ that any child is automatically the Husband in a marriage.
What could be more compelling than that?
This is great. I also think a pregnant mother should be able to claim child support immediately.
In the case of miscarriage, does she return the money? Why does a woman have the “right to choose”, but a man doesn’t have the right to refuse support if he doesn’t want the baby?
Bear in mind, I am pro-life, but I’ve never understood the one-sided bias here.
Do you really need someone to explain this to you? Come on.
My point was this: if a woman became pregnant to force the man to marry her. Yes, it is an outdated thought these days, but it used to be a tool.
Looking at it from a man’s point of view, if he wants a baby and she doesn’t, she can still abort.
In either case, he has no voice.
I may not have been as clear in my previous post.
It’s a lot more one-sided than that! The mother can actually turn the infant over to the state to raise with no financial consequences whatsoever. That’s what those Moses boxes at fire stations are all about.
I thought that was for mothers who wanted their children to grow up to be firemen.
Well no. There isn’t a refund on the care provided in the case of a miscarriage, and the aftercare for the miscarriage has to be paid for as well.
Bear in mind that this bias was developed during a period in time when abortion wasn’t considered a reasonable choice among civilized people, so the women didn’t really have the right to choose either.
Fundamentally it boils down to men being as sexually responsible as biology forces women to be. It’s better for society for children to be raised in two parent households, and this is a nudge by the government to make that the cheaper option.
I’ve never understood why people get tax credit for having children. It seems awfully unfair to childless couples.
To a point I agree. IMO we should have an across the board Alternative Minimum Tax for everyone at 5% of income, plus we should institute a $300 per year head tax for all adults. This way everyone has skin in the income tax game and no one free rides on income taxes.
Better would be to eliminate the income tax altogether, and go with a national sales tax plus the excise taxes already in existence – but that would entail the termination of most non-essential federal agencies and expenditures, like, for instance, the IRS, DoE (both), HHS, HUD, etc. Naturally it wouldn’t apply to things like food, just as it doesn’t with state sales taxes.
Exempting food would raise the rate for the sales tax. Plus a pure sales tax would nullify the tax benefits of Roth IRA/401 K.
I would be OK with a national sales tax +a small head tax to create some stability to smooth over periods of weak v strong sales + a 5% flat income tax no exemptions.. However, the sales tax MUST include everything and have a poison pill that eliminated it entirely of any exemptions are imposed.. If not then the same lobbying forces will create more exceptions for their product or category. Nest bet would be a Constitutional amendment locking in the various taxes and their rates with ability to raise ONLY in time of declared war and preemptively mandating the additional funds raised go to defense spending and the VA on top of their normal appropriations but could fund nothing else.
Nope. The states like Texas that have a sales tax don’t tax things like food, and we get along fine. We just have to live within our budgets. If you keep an income tax, it will inevitably grow, just as it has for the last century.
What other items or services are exempted in TX in addition to food? Lots.
One example is data processing services which has a 20% exemption of the total value of the service. Why not 100%, what makes this service deserving of the exemption? Then there’s the definition of what is and is not ‘data processing’. Both of these were put in by pressure from lobbyists to aid their particular class of service providers or industry with a lower rate of taxation.
Which means the overall tax rate must be proportionally higher to make up for the tax revenue not being collected due to the exemption.
Then the system begins to expand. A different industry says ‘hey we want a 20% exempt just like those guys’ or ‘hey vitamins are basically food, we want a 100% exemption’. FWIW the vitamin manufacturers eventually got their 100% exemption.
The only sure fire way to prevent shenanigans from lobbyists and Congress is to make the sales tax apply to everything. Plus this keeps the rate lower than it would be if we exempted food purchases in order to attain the level of funding needed. Plus no room for coding errors at the State level.
You’re arguing against lower taxes. Sure, some of them are politically motivated – hell, all of them are. Politicians gotta buy votes somehow. The KEY thing is, we collect enough to pay our bills (including the heavy cost of dealing with illegals, which we shouldn’t have to pay at all), even with the sales tax exemptions, and that’s what governments are supposed to do – keep down expenses, and keep the taxes as low as possible. Most just don’t do it. Democrats avoid it like Dracula and the cross.
txvet2,
You got it backwards. I am arguing in favor of a LOWER rate of taxation which could be achieved with removal of exemptions. The same exemptions you agree are political payoffs.
I am also arguing for simplicity, ease of enforcement and collection as well as the ultimate transparency; one tax rate for all retail sales, no exemptions.
You are arguing in favor of an opaque and confusing mix of rates and exemptions put in place via govt picking winners and losers by crony capitalist Congress Critters which has no limiting principle for any future thumb on the scale activities.
FWIW TX doesn’t have a low tax burden. When reviewing the total tax burden including income, sales and property taxes TX has an effective burden (total of all State/local taxes ÷ household income) of 9.4% for the middle 60% of of households.
By comparison FL (like TX no income tax), has an effective tax burden of 7.7% for the same group; Alabama (does have State income tax) has an effective tax burden of 8.6% for.the same group.
This is getting a little extended, so this is my last for this topic.
Texas is still in the lower half of states in terms of tax burden, although the method of determining that varies by source. (I found one that claims 7.9%.) Would I prefer to see those special interest exemptions tossed? Sure, but you’re not going to make much progress arguing against exemptions for necessities like food. Likewise, a state income tax would take a constitutional amendment, and there aren’t many pols in Austin who are that secure in their seats. Ain’t gonna happen.
Well I ain’t arguing TX Should have an income tax just pointing out that the LACK of a State income tax doesn’t automatically mean hackers have a lower overall tax burden. FWIW every retail purchase is necessary to the consumer who made the purchase, otherwise they wouldn’t make the purchase.
If we create a Federal Sales tax to replace the income tax then a simple, strait forward % applied to all goods and services that doesn’t have wiggle room for lobbyists to ‘influence’ Congress to create one exemption after another is IMO, the better option.
Every adult in the USA should be paying taxes. If they were instead of the current system where a large portion do not (45% ish) then the public would be much more interested in preventing the Federal govt from pissing away out tax dollars. As it is we have folks who don’t pay taxes demanding more ‘free stuff’ from the Federal govt.
Last point, Margaret Thatcher’s warning about socialism ‘..sooner or later you run out of other people’s money’ is equally true for our own system. We have a large number of folks, some on the center/right, who are just as addicted to ‘free stuff’ from the Federal govt (all those tax credits/deductions and exemptions for some Seniors which reduce their tax burden to zero or near zero) as the folks at the lower end of the economic ladder demanding sec 8 housing and welfare checks.
Because having children (and raising them to be contributors) is a benefit to society that isn’t provided by couples that don’t have children or raise children. We can argue that a refundable tax credit isn’t a good use of tax dollars, but we can’t really argue that child deductions are unfair.
I didn’t make any argument that the refundable credits or deductions are unfair in isolation. I do propose a limiting principle on them with establishing a universal AMT and a minimal head tax.
I do argue that practically no one should be exempt from income taxes. Establishing a minimum head tax of $300 is a cost of less than 83¢ per day; that’s not a high burden.
A universal AMT at 5% of income isn’t a high burden either. Somebody making 30k pays $1,500 a year. That’s $125 a month, $28.85 per week and $4.12 per day.
Added together my proposed head tax and AMT would have this $30K per year earner owing less than $5 a day in total Federal income taxes. That’s not a huge burden considering a pack of Marlboro cigarettes is more expensive.
Oh so then we’d complete the lie about income tax AND disincentivize families. Why not ditch the income tax entirely? Currently some government taxes you on everything you earn, spend, or own. How about they pick 1 or get thrown into the harbor?
Nice attempt to move the goal post.
What I am arguing is that every adult in the USA should be paying Federal taxes no matter what federal tax scheme we choose.
All I am proposing is a limiting principle on the total amount of the credits/deductions by setting a minimum floor with a 5% AMT and a minimal head tax. The total cost of which for a 30K per year salary would be less than $5 a day. I don’t think $5 a day for that person is too big an ask. Tell you what lets reduce the size, scope and cost of the Federal govt so we can reduce that $5 a day to maybe $3 a day.
One thing is for damn sure given your reaction; people that had previously not been paying Federal taxes as a result of the deductions/credits will begin to pay close attention to Fed govt spending. Far more than they do today.
For the same reason single or unaccompanied married folks serve typhoon. watches while their shipmates with accompanying dependents get to stay home because the poor kiddies might be frightened by the storm.
I don;’t remember a family being issued to me in boot camp.
Because families and children are the life of a nation and our government tried to encourage them by off-setting the cost.
I think they’ve done rather a bad job of meeting their objective.
how did our government encourage families and children back in the 19th Century; I don’t believe we had national, tax-supported welfare at that time and despite a major, internecine war, we didn’t do a bad job increasing the population either.
By giving families big chunks of land to fill with their children.
Post WWII these family related exemptions were put in place initially to shield low and middle income households from income taxes. Remember that the tax rates were stupidly high back then. Over time, inflation began to erode the value of these exemptions and more folks began to have to pay taxes.
We are currently in a place where the bottom 50% pays 3% of income taxes. Top 25% paid 68.8% of income taxes. Top 10% pays 71% of income taxes. The top 1% pays about 42% of income taxes. The bottom 75% paid 31.2% of income taxes. The bottom 90% paid 29% of income taxes.
The system is way out of balance and it helps disguise how big our federal govt is and much money they collect.
TNX for the realistic n’ mathematical perspective
“Top 25% paid 68.8% of income taxes. Top 10% pays 71% of income taxes.”
You got your numbers confused. Here’s the chart from Heritage.
Dang sure did. Transposed 86.8% of income taxes paid for the top 25% into 68.8%.
Too much outside work in the heat. My bad, did this on a rest break. Looks like I needed a longer break.
I didn’t know this, thank you. I thought the child tax credit wasn’t all that old…..maybe a decade or two.
Once upon a time every country had a compelling interest to increase their citizenry’s population. That is why benefits were attached to marriage and child rearing.
That’s before crazy people like Gates took over the government.
It’s an incentive to have children for the betterment of the nation. Same with the mortgage interest deduction and a whole lot of others.
Meantime, our country is being looted by the democrat/GOPe swamp and as a result. our country will never be the same.
You’d get even more of a tax credit in Japan, where pregnancy lasts 10 months.
I don’t recall Japan being subject to American income tax laws, although I haven’t really given it much thought……
Good news!
Bet a dollar if this passes, the first thing that follows is that trans men claiming to be pregnant will be eligible for that tax credit.
But they can’t claim it until they deliver.
I do hope that for pregnancies spanning a fiscal year, they have the brains to let the family take a double exemption in the birth year rather than have to refile their previous year’s taxes after the birth. The latter would just funnel most or all of the exemption to H&R Block as new fees.
There should be a taxpayer-maker tax credit for the parent who produce a actual taxpayer, based on their earnings/taxes.
Why do I get the feeling that would be derided as a racist policy that would produce unequal outcomes before we even saw what the outcomes were?