As President Biden has announced, Americans will begin receiving advanced Child Tax Credit payments, as provided for in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The one-year increased benefit is designed to help parents support their families and is seen as a viable method to lessen the enormous stress on families – particularly in light of the coronavirus pandemic — and to reduce the number of children living in poverty.
Agudath Israel of America has, for decades, worked in Washington on expanding and enhancing the child tax credit, as it has been of value to members of the Orthodox Jewish community. Large families are quite common among Orthodox Jews and this tax program has proven beneficial to that population.
“Over the years, progress on the child tax credit has come, albeit slowly and incrementally,” noted Agudath Israel’s Rabbi Abba Cohen, Vice President for Government Affairs and Washington Director. “This year the credit was a priority for us and we worked hard to make this valuable tax benefit more applicable and accessible to our families. We especially thank Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Ben Cardin (D-NY) for their leadership in making this happen.
Previous versions were helpful but often did not live up to their promise. For example, one of the hurdles has been limitations on the number of eligible children, as the program and often subsequent proposals would cap the number of children who could receive the credit. This would be of limited relief to large needy Orthodox Jewish families.
The 2021 Child Tax Credit goes far in addressing these problems. Under the program, the child tax credit has been increased from $2,000 to $3,000 per child for children over the age of six, and from $2,000 to $3,600 for children under the age of six. Moreover, the legislation raised the age limit from 16 to 17. Families making up to $150,000 (couple) or $112,500 (single parent) will receive the full credit. Eligible households will receive up to $300 per child every month. Under the program , the credit will be adjusted for families in higher income brackets.
There is no cap on the number of children eligible to receive the credit.
For additional information, see
https://www.whitehouse.gov/child-tax-credit/ andhttps://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/advance-child-tax-credit-payments-in-2021.
On another front, the American Rescue plan included $15 billion in Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) funds, which subsidizes child care for low-income families. Almost thirty years ago, Agudath Israel, working with the late Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), played a central role in ensuring that the program would allow parents to use the funding to send their children to the child care provider of their choice – including religious providers. For decades, Agudath Israel has continued to make sure that CCDBG has been a major source of relief to working parents opting for faith-based child care.
“The Child Care Tax Credit, and other forms of child relief, are an enormous help to American families and the financial challenges parents face in raising children in today’s world,” concluded Rabbi Cohen. “Ultimately, it will help children grow up as happier, healthier and more productive young people better equipped to face the next stages of life. We strongly support the President’s call to extend the credit permanently.”
