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

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 low- income families. Some beneficial structural changes include permanently setting the refundability threshold at $3,000 and insulating the Credit’s provisions from inflation