Protect the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit: Any Deal on Corporate Extenders Must Apply to Refundables

Recipient: U.S. House of Representatives

View the PDF of this letter here.

Dear Representative:

On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States, we urge you to oppose any deal that would restrict eligibility for the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC). Instead of adding restrictions that penalize low-income working families, many of whom are immigrants and people of color, Congress should support these vitally important programs and make permanent the expansions to the CTC and EITC. Making permanent the improvements to the EITC and CTC is critically important to millions of families, but it should not happen at the expense of low-wage immigrant families.

The EITC and CTC are federal tax credits that supplement the incomes of low- and moderate-income families, including military families, each year. If the EITC and CTC were to expire or be restricted, it would affect up to 8 million children, many of whom are Latino, and many of whom have been spared from poverty by the EITC and CTC^[1].

These tax credits are two of the most important tools that the nation has in its arsenal to fight poverty. Both tax credits are only eligible to people who are working. As such, any deal to restrict them would penalize tax payers, including immigrants, and remove important incentives to work and contribute to the economy. Such a deal would also amount to a tax increase on many of the lowest-income families among us, and it would be punitive and counterproductive to our national economic recovery.

Restricting the EITC and CTC is also economically unsound. These refundable tax credits provide an immediate and significant stimulus effect on our economy, second only to unemployment insurance, as the families receiving such credits are especially likely to quickly spend them. Again, we should be encouraging participation in these programs, not trying to restrict access.

For these reasons, we urge you to reject any deal that restricts the CTC and EITC and instead make these tax credits permanent. Thank you for your consideration. If you have any questions, feel free to contact either of us, or Senior Counsel Emily Chatterjee, at (202) 466-3648.

Sincerely,

Wade Henderson
President & CEO

Nancy Zirkin
Executive Vice President