últimas notícias

Without a January child tax credit payment, Jen Cousins will have to wait a few extra months to replace the brakes on her minivan, the only car her family of six owns.

Cousins, 44, a stay-at-home mom in Orlando, Florida, has been receiving the full credit for each of her four children ages six, eight, twelve and thirteen for the past six months. She’s put most of the extra money toward medical expenses – the entire family wears glasses, one child needs special prescription eye drops and speech therapy and soon, her oldest kids will need braces.

Her husband, Matt, 43, works as a software architect and has insurance through work, but it only covers him, so the family pays almost $1,000 each month to insure Jen and the kids, she said. Plus, additional out-of-pocket expenses always come up.

More from Invest in You:
Companies raise perks to repay employees’ student loans
Here’s a financial road map for the rest of the year
Biden ‘not sure’ child tax credit, free community college will stay in Build Back Better

“When you have four kids, weird things come up all the time,” she said. “Somebody breaks something, and you’ve got a $400 ER visit you’ve got to pay.”

Without the credit, her family budget will tighten significantly, she said. Some 35 million families with 65 million children face the new year without a generous tax cut.

“We can already feel the pinch,” she said of missing just one monthly check. “It’s figuring out where are we going to trim stuff, because it has been a really good support system for us to have for the last six months.”

The enhanced child tax credit

In March 2020, the passage of the American Rescue Plan enhanced the existing child tax credit, increasing the benefit to $3,000 from $2,00 and adding $600 for children under the age of 6 for the 2021 tax year.  

The first half of the credit was delivered to families via monthly checks that started in July and went through December. The second half will come when people file their 2021 tax returns this year.

If the benefit had been extended, as Democrats proposed in the Biden Administration’s Build Back Better plan, another check would’ve likely been sent in the second week of January.

“After just six months of payments, the evidence is clear. The expanded and improved monthly Child Tax Credit, a policy I have been working on since 2003, works,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Ct. “It was a lifeline for the middle class — the biggest middle class tax cut we have seen in generations — and lifted 50 percent of children out of poverty.”