GOP/TAXES: “Republicans left out many details from the tax-code outline they released last week, and few are more important for middle-income households than the fate of the child tax credit.
They plan to bump up the $1,000 per-child credit for children under age 17, but they haven’t settled on how much or at what income levels the credit would start to shut off. There is a divide in the party over the issue. Family advocates want to boost the child tax credit as much as possible; others would rather focus tax cuts on promoting faster economic growth…
The debate over the credit also is a window into the trade-offs Republicans are weighing as they try to make good on promises of a booming economy and middle-class tax cuts…
Senators Mike Lee (R., Utah) and Marco Rubio (R., Fla), with support from Ivanka Trump, are pushing a $2,000 credit per child, double the current amount. Their formula for calculating the credit is more generous to low-income families than current law is, and it would be refundable, meaning people can get money back from the Internal Revenue Service even if they don’t owe income taxes.
The GOP tax plan for now doesn’t have enough detail to show how many middle-income households with children would benefit.”
-Richard Rubin, “Republicans Hammer Out Child Tax Credit Details,” The Wall Street Journal online, Oct. 4, 2017 07:47am