Tax Alliance for Economic Mobility Newsletter: December 2018

Dear Advocate,

Over the past year, Congress has continued to sell and to try to expand upon the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)—even as recently as last week. Many of those efforts have failed. This is in large part thanks to your work to educate your family, friends and neighbors on the harmful effects of the TJCA and push back against the law’s regressive nature. Your efforts have allowed us to take positive steps towards creating a more equitable tax code, such as legislation passed in the House this year to make the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program permanent and the Senate’s action to increase the VITA program’s funding.

With the return of a divided federal government next year, the likelihood of more large-scale regressive tax changes like the TCJA becoming law will be much lower than last year. However, the upcoming political environment could pave the way for bipartisan approaches that leverage the tax code in ways that truly support those who need it most. As we look to the next round of elections, this moment is also likely to yield a series of bold tax policy proposals for solving some of the most pressing economic problems families face today.

As the Tax Alliance continues to plan for 2019, we hope you’ll take this time to reflect on the impact you’ve had on tax policy debates over the past year. More importantly, we hope you’ll find time to rest and recharge, so that on January 3, when the 116th Congress is sworn into office, we can quickly resume our work to broaden our base of advocates on Capitol Hill and around the country.

Thank you for your hard work to create fair and inclusive tax policies!

Sincerely,

Tax Alliance for Economic Mobility

Featured Resources:

Making Care Less Taxing: State Child and Dependent Care Tax Provisions (National Women’s Law Center)

The cost of child and dependent care has been rising each year, and families are struggling to keep up. While direct assistance remains the most effective way to help families access child care, tax provisions for child and dependent care expenses can provide some help to families struggling to pay for the child care they need. The federal government and over half of states offer some form of a child and dependent care (CADC) tax provision that reduces the tax amount owed by families and, in some instances, increases their tax refunds

This report from the National Women’s Law Center provides an updated and comprehensive overview of CADC tax provisions.

Read the full report

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Race, Wealth and Taxes: How the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Supercharges the Racial Wealth Divide (Prosperity Now and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy)

Using Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s microsimulation model, which generates tax estimates for a sample of representative taxpayer records, Race, Wealth and Taxes: How the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Supercharges the Racial Wealth Divide provides the first quantitative analysis to examine the racial implications of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and how these tax cuts reward existing White wealth at the expense of the economic security of households of color, poor households and a stalling middle class.

Read the summary and full report