News Round Up: August 26, 2019
Here are some highlights from the past week’s news and upcoming events on family tax credit issues:
Top Story: Julián Castro, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, released the “People First Economic Plan for Working Families” as part of his 2020 campaign. The plan would expand the Child Tax Credit (CTC) to $3,000 per child; and would make the credit fully refundable, indexed for inflation, and available in monthly installments. The plan would also restructure the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to include all dependents, low-income independent students, and workers below the age of 25 and above the age of 65. (Julián Castro)
- Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families and Children’s HealthWatch released a Health Impact Assessment report on how a state-level EITC would affect health outcomes. The report found that enacting a refundable state credit worth 15 percent of the federal credit would be the most effective way to address poor health outcomes for Arkansas workers and their families. (Arkansas Advocates)
- Utah’s Tax Restructuring and Equalization Task Force presented a report to the state legislature highlighting their recommendations to address structural imbalances within the state tax code, which included enacting a state-level EITC. (KPCW)
- Tamarine Cornelius, policy analyst at the Wisconsin Budget Project, outlined how changes to the federal and Wisconsin tax codes have exacerbated racial and ethnic inequities within the state, such as the federal restructuring of the CTC in 2017, which excluded almost 11 million low-income children and children from undocumented families. (Milwaukee Independent)