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What about couples that don't have kids? What about parents who make more than the limit with kids? What about illegal immigrant kids? What about the people who are paying for all of this and not seeing a dime in return?
Working couples that don't have kids end up with way more net $$$ in their accounts in the long run over a measley tax credit. And it's indexed as well so the more you make the less credit you get...it's not that much really.
[b]...perhaps because many of them do. That's my observation over the decades. didn't mean to strike a nerve.
You may not have said every, but you did make it sound like most families with two working parents were in that situation so they could have the latest and best of everything.
The more accurate question - why should I pay for YOUR kid?
I DO hope you're not saying I have one of the two legged variety...I highly doubt the gubmint gives out tax breaks for dogs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LABART
Oh yeah! I guess you never popped out a kid before! LOL!
Nope, and have absolutely no desire to do so. Disgusting process minus step one IMO. As I said before, just because someone has popped kids out doesnt make them special enough for a tax break.
And, if children are essentially an investment in the future as others have argued, then we need to reconsider the investment portfolio. From what Ive seen from the generations behind mine, we're all up sheet creek without a paddle once mine hits the nursing home.
How about not giving anymore tax credits to parents period!
Parents make a major contribution to society that childless couples do not: they have children. Among them are the future scientists and medical researchers, etc., but also the future rank-and-file folks necessary for running our country. Kids cost money, hence less disposable income. Therefore they deserve to be rewarded with tax credits.
As for this specific tax credit, I'm in doubt. Ideally the mother would stay at home and raise her children, at least until they reached school age. Yet most mothers are forced into the workplace by their economic situation (either real or imagined). We might be able to go back to the good old days of 1950s and 1960s, even 1970s, when the father's income alone, at least in the middle and upper working class, usually sufficed for the entire family. But let's face it, that social change, should it happen, will take place over decades. And it's very unlikely.
Because there are so few couples like that and the ones where the husband goes off to work and the wife stays at home tend to be upper class people that don't need the tax credit anyway. Most working people cannot afford that arrangement. I am one of the few that actually has a blue/white collar job that did have a stay at home wife because I have a union job that offers a fair amount of late night project overtime and Sunday work (that is the nature of being a cellular tech- they like to do take downs late at night and on Sundays when traffic on the network is low). Being a union member meant that I have a "Cadillac" health/life/dental/vision plan that covered me and 5 dependents (only 2 are on it now because the others are grown up) and that I did not have to pay for. But there are so few people like that anymore that we are probably in the single digits percentage wise. That said, I do not have any objection to the government assisting people with daycare and pre-K. Actually the state of Georgia provides Pre K care as part of the lottery.
I respectfully call BS on this. We are not even close to the upper class and I have stayed home since I gave birth to our first of two children, eleven years ago. Furthermore, we've lived in two different states during this time and I've connected with many other SAHMs who also wouldn't be able to be considered upper class by the furthest of stretches.
I wouldn't hesitate to go back to work, anywhere, if something ever happened to my husband or his job, and sometimes I want to. But we have sacrificed purposefully because we realize the importance of our children being raised with a cohesive foundation true to our values. It hasn't been easy, but we have made it work. What would be easier is to just go back to work, make a little extra money. Twice I've had people approach me with employment, and both were tempting. But in the end the right choice for us was living on less and cutting out the things we really don't need or can find the patience to afford through saving extra 'fun' cash.
Oh, the reason our path started out shaky was actually because of a union. I grew up in the union, so I understand how a family can owe their entire being to one. But the positions my husband has held the past nine years, OUTSIDE OF THE UNION, has offered him so much more opportunity and income growth, we still have decent health insurance, and we have long stopped feeling as if we're pressured to believe something that we truly don't believe.
Instead of increasing the child CARE credit, he should have increase the CHILD CREDIT, this way it would have taken care of more of the middleclass, plus its a direct credit AFTER (ln 51 AND ln 65 on the 1040)your bottom line taxes, while the CARE credit (ln 48 on the 1040)only reduces your taxes.
How about can't feed them, don't breed them.
Parents need to have a clue about the cost of raising their child before they have them.
On the other side, anyone whining about this and is anti-birth control or a woman's right to choose, you're proof about the hypocrisy of the right to life until birthers.
Id like to know why those with kids get a tax credit anyway. So you popped out a kid...why should you get special privileges?
lol. I have a friend who says this exact thing. I agree, and I have two children.
This is just one of the reasons the federal income tax should be destroyed. There are many ways to collect taxes, but the income tax is the most corruptable way.
You may not have said every, but you did make it sound like most families with two working parents were in that situation so they could have the latest and best of everything.
Well, Julie, I have indeed observed that a lot of them ARE under a self-imposed pressure to do just that. I stand by that statement because I have witnessed it time and time again. Perhaps not exactly "the best of" everything...but certainly more and more and more. Perhaps it's a matter of demographics.
I live and work (rather "worked" until this year) in a SE PA middle class neighborhood. I taught homebound students in these neighborhoods for 10 years. And I've watched these parents killing themselves to maintain the little house at the shore, the boat, the ridiculous (mostly electronic) Christmas gifts for the kids, the penchant for collictibles, the new kitchen cabinets, the cheerleading competition trips (don't get me started on that one), the nice used car for the 16-yr-old (how necessary is that?), the bigger and better gas grill to go with the new patio furniture. And they're always exhausted.
That's what I see.
You have to admit that we live in a gluttonous culture...true? Well there are those who aspire to maintain that.
Parents make a major contribution to society that childless couples do not: they have children. Among them are the future scientists and medical researchers, etc., but also the future rank-and-file folks necessary for running our country. Kids cost money, hence less disposable income. Therefore they deserve to be rewarded with tax credits.
As for this specific tax credit, I'm in doubt. Ideally the mother would stay at home and raise her children, at least until they reached school age. Yet most mothers are forced into the workplace by their economic situation (either real or imagined). We might be able to go back to the good old days of 1950s and 1960s, even 1970s, when the father's income alone, at least in the middle and upper working class, usually sufficed for the entire family. But let's face it, that social change, should it happen, will take place over decades. And it's very unlikely.
Funny how you focus on those children that become productive members of society. A lot of those children will also become future murderers, child molestors, and rapists. Not to mention that many will become parents who abuse the welfare system like their parents probably did.
Having children is expensive no doubt, but people that have them make a conscious decision to do so. If the government is going to award people for their reproductive choices then they need to reward all people, or get rid of the tax breaks all together.
Working couples that don't have kids end up with way more net $$$ in their accounts in the long run over a measley tax credit. And it's indexed as well so the more you make the less credit you get...it's not that much really.
So if we get rid of the tax break you wont even miss it right?
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I have a friend who says this exact thing. I agree, and I have two children.
