Weekly News Round-up: August 10, 2015

Here are some highlights from the past week’s news on family tax credit issues. Remember – you also can track news coverage throughout the week by visiting our website, where you can filter news by a specific credit and/or state.

  • Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.) introduced the TRAFFIC Relief Act, a bill that would increase the federal gas tax and make permanent expiring provisions of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) (Tax Credits for Working Families, The Hill, Consumer Affairs).
  • Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed a bill increasing the state EITC from 15 to 23 percent of the federal credit. He vowed to raise the credit again during the next legislative session (Lowell Sun, WWLP, MassLive).
  • California budget analysts predicted 825,000 taxpayers will claim the state’s new EITC (San Francisco Chronicle).
  • The GOP held its first presidential debate last week, but candidates said very little about their plans to reduce income inequality (Washington Post, Vox).
  • Kenneth McClintock, a former president of the Puerto Rico Senate, proposed making Puerto Ricans eligible for the EITC as one way to bolster the territory’s struggling economy (The Hill).
  • The Journal of the American Medical Association released a report that found growing up in poverty may hurt a child’s brain development. The authors suggested strengthening programs like the EITC to counter this effect (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities).
  • Tax Justice Blog investigated the economic policies of two GOP presidential candidates, Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio) and former Gov. George Pataki (R-N.Y.) (Tax Justice Blog).