It is a great day for America. As the first cycle of child tax credits is marked complete, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are visibly elated about the event. Taking a victory lap at the White House, they spoke about the importance of this “historic day” for American citizens.
Calling the expanded child tax credit a “big deal”, Harris proceeded to introduce the president at the White House event. Biden later said that this is a monumental step to reduce child poverty in the country.
With this new policy in play, families earning a total of less than $150,000 a year and single parents getting lower than $112,500 will now qualify for a credit up to $3,600 per child. The payments will be sent out to nearly 39 million households, as confirmed by the IRS.
Many times, Biden has gone on to term these payments as a “middle-class tax cut”, claiming it’s focused on the people who are experiencing a financial crunch.
During his address at the White House, the President declared that 97% of children getting this credit are from working families, while the remaining 3% are kids under the custody of grandparents. According to the IRS, the families who are eligible for the child tax credit will receive monthly payments.
Additionally, Biden also took up this opportunity to urge Congress to extend the tax cut. Given the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion human infrastructure plan in the works, the tax credit can get a proper extension.
He ardently proclaimed the importance of the tax cut and put immense pressure on Congress to extend it beyond its expiry date next year. Biden also added how the economy has been bogged down by the prevalence of child poverty and a tax cut would contribute significantly to lowering these rates in the country.
Back when Biden was deciding the flow of these payments, he did not give out a plan that would reach families with incomes so low that they couldn’t pay taxes. The estimations of the Treasury Department indicate that automatic payments will go out to 88% of children’s families in the country.
Hence, this leaves about 7.8 million children whose families will have to manually sign up to receive the payments. Although Biden urges families to open child tax credit.gov, the overall efforts of the administration remain uncertain.
