News Round-up: January 3, 2017

Here are some highlights from the past week’s news and upcoming events on family tax credit issues.

  • The 115th Congress was sworn in and tax reform will likely be high on the agenda, with debate on new tax legislation expected to begin this spring. But what that legislation looks like is anyone’s guess since neither Congressional Republicans nor President-Elect Donald Trump (R) have announced their priorities. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R) and Trump have said in the past that they support increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) (Washington Post, New York Times, MarketWatch, Fox Business News).
  • Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Penn State professor Sarah Damaske called on president-elect Donald Trump to promote policies that benefit single working mothers. Damaske pointed to the EITC and Child and Dependent Care Credit (CDCTC) as programs that help single mothers make ends meet (Harvard Business Review).

  • Eleanor Wheeler, a senior policy analyst for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, explained how creating a state EITC could help Arkansas veterans (Arkansas Times).
  • Lawmakers in Oklahoma made the state’s EITC nonrefundable during the last legislative session, but advocates and elected officials are now working together to restore the credit’s refundability in 2017 (Tahlequah Daily Press).
  • New Jersey‘s law to expand the state EITC from 30 to 35 percent of the federal credit went into effect on January 1, which means eligible families across the state will see an increased benefit when they file their taxes this spring (Bloomberg BNA).
  • Governing‘s J.B. Wogan wrote about the history of federal and state EITCs and why the credit received bipartisan support across the country, even during the Great Recession (Governing).