Last month House Republicans revealed a four hundred page overhaul of tax legislation that could have a negative impact on foster care and the adoption process here in the United States. In this “Jobs and Tax Cuts Act” there’s a section dealing with adoption tax credits, which have been available to most families wanting to adopt for the past twenty years. If this section is left intact in the upcoming legislation it will mean that for many families who began the adoption process as far back as 2018, that vital tax credit will no longer be available.
Currently the one-time adoption tax credit is a generous $13,570.00 per child. This is to help compensate for the legal and medical fees that are mandatory for the adoption process in the United States, and do not even begin to cover the fees extant in adopting children from overseas.
Currently the credit amount will begin to decrease in proportion to a families gross annual income when it reaches above 203 thousand dollars per annum — the cut off is at the 243 thousand dollar income level. Families below that level, say adoption and financial experts, need that tax credit as an incentive to follow through on the adoption process.
But Republicans in the House say the tax incentive is more of a boondoggle than anything else and want it cut. Democrats in the Senate have vowed to veto the entire bill rather than let the adoption tax incentive removal pass.