posted
I think you guys are missing my point - yes I could get the child care credit - if I put my kids in child care.
But see, I choose not to. I choose to care for them myself. The child care credit to me says "We, the government, will help you go to work and leave your kids with others. And as for you people that care for your kids yourself - you guys don't need any help."
I don't like that. I'm not saying the government should give me any money to stay home with my kids - I just don't think they should be in the business of rewarding parents who leave their kids in daycare with a tax credit. I am an advocate for that tax credit being abolished altogether, and replacing it with an increase in the child credit that benefits ALL parents, those that use child care services, and those like me who don't.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Belle, you have a choice and the OPTION. Big difference.
There are plenty of people that don't have the option. Either there is a single working parent, or both parents work minimum-low wage jobs JUST to keep a roof over their family's head, food on the table, and clothes on their backs.
The tax credit merely recognizes the fact that child care is a huge expense - and for the lowest income families, a way of recouping some of that expense.
And really, the more you earn the less you get back. For example, a person reporting $1880 in licensed (taxable) child care (and an income of $40,000) gets a tax credit of $414. A person reporting only $15,000 in earnings and the same amount in child care fees would have received NO MORE than $658 in a tax credit.
There is NO bar to any family - both parents working or not - to using and claiming the child care tax credit. It's simply based on personal choice and income-based need.
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