As part of their media tour promoting a tax reform proposal to expand the Child Tax Credit (CTC), Ivanka Trump and the White House, along with Sen. Marco Rubio, are leaving out an important detail from their plan: they want to eliminate the longstanding and widely popular Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC).
Of the very few existing tax credits and deductions that support families with young children, only the CDCTC was created to help parents with the cost of work-related child care expenses.
Under the Ivanka-Rubio proposal, families with child care or dependent care expenses will no longer receive the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit – up to $2,100 for parents with two more children. Instead, they are proposing an expansion of the Child Tax Credit that, reportedly, isn’t enough offset the loss parents will face with the elimination of the CDCTC.
FFYF supports expanding the CTC, just not at the expense of the CDCTC. The CTC is not tied to child care, and CTC money may be used for any expense—even those not related to the costs of raising a child.
Nearly 15 million children under the age of six in the U.S. have working parents, and paying for child care presents a significant and growing burden to parents’ ability to enter, return, or remain in the workforce. According to a recent national poll, 81% of the electorate—including 74% of Trump voters—support providing a child care-specific tax credit to help parents better afford quality child care.
Instead of eliminating the CDCTC, Congress should expand it, and make it refundable to reach more low-income families who need it most. FFYF has endorsed legislation that would do just that.