The House Ways and Means Committee’s new tax bill — The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act — is moving through the House in near-record time. It was introduced on January 19th, reported out of committee on the 23rd, and could receive a vote on the House floor next week. While this bill has been branded as full of middle-class tax cuts and pro-growth reforms, a closer look reveals concerns.
This article, written by tax policy experts from The Heritage Foundation, provides an overview of the plan. In short, this bill creates a massive welfare expansion and would fundamentally change the function of the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), becoming more like a welfare program rather than tax relief.
Another article from The Heritage Foundation reinforces the myriad of problems including:
- Enabling an increase in subsidies for single parents rather than promoting and strengthening married, two-parent households.
- 90%+ of the bill’s projected cost would go toward welfare expansion - not “tax relief”.
- Both programs are already riddled with fraud. The improper payment rates for ACTC and EITC were 31.6% and 15.8% respectively. Expanding and altering its function will only make this worse.
- The work requirements are so weak that to qualify for the benefits it would be enough to work part time, part of the year, even if you only work every other year.
- It fails to close an existing loophole, allowing illegal immigrants who have children born in the U.S. to be eligible to claim these welfare benefits.
