Press Releases

Rep. Balint Votes to Advance Child Tax Credit for Working Families, Boost Affordable Housing 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last night, Rep. Becca Balint voted to advance an expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC), disaster relief, and an enhanced Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), out of the House of Representatives with the bipartisan Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act. 

“The enhancements to the Child Tax Credit will lift nearly half a million children out of poverty in the first year, delivering relief to 16 million children nationwide, including an estimated 15,000 in Vermont. And the enhancements to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit will make way for 200,000 affordable rental units. These commonsense changes to our tax code finally will be impactful for so many Vermonters who are struggling to make ends meet,” said Rep. Balint. 

“But why can’t Republicans ever support working families without massive handouts to corporations? Americans want and deserve tax fairness. We need to make our tax code work for working families, not just the ultra-wealthy. I look forward to working with my Democratic colleagues to make even further expansions on transformative tax credits like the child tax credit and others.”

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that the bill would benefit 15,000 children in Vermont and 16 million children nationwide while lifting as many as 400,000 children above the poverty line in its first year, with more even more set to benefit in 2025.

The legislation delivers vital tax relief to working families by:

• Increasing the maximum refundability of the Child Tax Credit (CTC), allowing low-income families to receive more of the credit than they were able to previously.
• Giving eligible families the option to use their earned income from the prior year to calculate their CTC, benefiting taxpayers whose income may have fallen from one year to the next.
• Assists businesses and individuals by cutting red tape and rebuilds communities struck by disasters with tax relief.
• Modifying the computation of the refundability to be on a per-child basis, meaning more low-income families with multiple children will qualify for a higher CTC.
• Adjusting the CTC for inflation starting in 2025, keeping pace with the cost of living.

Other Key Provisions
This package will spur spending on domestic research and development by businesses, by allowing businesses to deduct those expenses immediately.  It will lower the cost of housing by enhancing the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, which will help develop more than 200,000 affordable housing units. 

It will provide tax relief to taxpayers who have been the victims of natural disasters. The assistance for disaster impacted communities extends the rules for the treatment of certain disaster-related personal losses including any area where a major disaster was declared by the President during the period beginning on January 1, 2020, and ending 60 days after the date of enactment of the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act. 

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