Time for the Child Tax Credit to Grow Up: Preserving the Credit’s Availability and Enhancing Benefits for Families

Abstract

The Child Tax Credit is one of the largest subsidies in the tax code for families with children. The CTC provides a supplementary boost to families by providing cash income when they do not have income tax liability. The CTC has more recently been used as an economic recovery measure and as a work incentive. However, the Credit's own structure undermines its ability to serve these purposes. The Credit should be structured such that it will further the program's key purposes and remain available to more lowincome families. Some beneficial structural changes include permanently setting the refundability threshold at $3,000 and insulating the Credit's provisions from inflation.  J.D. 2011, Columbia Law School; B.A. 2006, Drew University. The author would like to thank Anne Lieberman for her outstanding editorial assistance and the members of the Columbia Journal of Tax Law for their comments and editorial work. 302 COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF TAX LAW [Vol.2:301