Posted on 27 November 2012.
By Seth Grob
LAW OFFICE OF SETH A. GROB LLC
November is National Adoption Awareness Month.? On Nov. 16, Colorado courts across this state finalized hundreds of children?s adoptions, including many who have languished in the foster care system and others who have been placed privately and internationally.
For the past 15 years, United States policy has encouraged these domestic and international adoptions, in part, through the adoption tax credit. Most adoptive families have been able to claim a credit against their federal income tax liability for qualified adoption expenses up to a set limit that has changed over the years.
As an attorney whose practice has focused on adoption law for the past 21 years, I?m concerned about the current tax credit expiring and the resulting impact for the children who need loving permanent adoptive families.
The adoption tax credit has helped hundreds of thousands of American families adopt.? It has partially offset the costs associated with adoption since established in 1997. But it is set to all but expire on Dec. 31.
Without the adoption tax credit, many parents hoping to adopt will be unable to afford to do so. The adoption tax credit does two important things: It helps to ensure that as many children as possible find the forever families they deserve, and it puts those families in a more stable financial position to provide an environment where children can thrive.
There are more than 300 children available for adoption in the Colorado state foster-care system. Nationally, there are approximately 104,000 children in foster care waiting for adoption.? Many of these waiting children have special needs. Last year, United States families adopted approximately 125,000 children.? The adoption tax credit provided critical support to the large majority of those families to help pay for the costs of adopting and help offset the long-term costs of care for the children.
The adoption tax credit exists for 2012, with a maximum credit of $12,650. After Dec. 31, the credit will not go away completely, but if no action is taken, far fewer children and their adoptive families will benefit.
The credit will apply only to special needs adoptions where the family incurs qualified adoption expenses, but in these kinds of adoptions there are most often no, or very limited, qualified expenses because the state child welfare agency usually pays for the adoption. Since most of the costs in such adoptions are the future costs of caring for a special needs child, the adoption tax credit will be essentially worthless as an incentive to adopt.
Further, by limiting the credit?s applicability to solely special needs children, families adopting healthy children privately and internationally will not benefit. The result is likely to be far fewer children adopted and less assistance to families to provide the necessary support services often needed to maintain such adoptions.
There is a bill in Congress that would preserve and enhance the adoption tax credit. The bipartisan Making Adoptions Affordable Act (Senate Bill 3616/House Resolution 4373) would make the adoption tax credit permanent and includes a refundable provision, allowing many more children and families to benefit from the credit by making it more available to lower and middle income families with limited tax liabilities.
My hope is that the members of the Colorado delegation to the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate will support the passage of the Making Adoptions Affordable Act, and, thereby, help the thousands of families who want to open their homes and hearts to our most vulnerable members of society: children in need of family.
? Seth Grob is the principle shareholder of the Law Office of Seth A. Grob, a Colorado law firm dedicated to building families through adoption, infertility law, and child welfare.? He is currently Vice-President of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys.
?
Source: http://www.lawweekonline.com/2012/11/op-ed-why-save-the-adoption-tax-credit/
the killers julianne hough brandy calvin johnson calvin johnson michael pineda charles taylor
Recent Comments