Media Contact: Stacy Opitz, Prepare + Prosper — 651-262-2162
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St. Paul, MN (Dec. 12, 2017) – Minnesota’s nonprofit community, a sector that employs nearly 12 percent of Minnesota’s workforce and partners with millions, is aligned in its opposition to the harmful and unprecedented federal tax bill.
The bill awaiting passage in Congress gives the largest benefits to profitable corporations and the wealthiest at the expense of most Americans. The tax cuts add more than $1 trillion to the deficit, and to pay for it, policymakers have clear plans to come back and deeply cut health care and other critical services. The harm will be dramatic, particularly to children, retirees, people with disabilities, workers, and families.
With trillions of dollars over the next decade at risk and impacts spanning all sectors, the tax bill under consideration and the budget resolution passed earlier this fall have vast negative consequences that will affect millions of Minnesotans well into the future. Advocates agree this tax bill does not represent the values of Minnesotans, and urge Congressional representatives to reject it.
“The tax bills that passed out of the House and Senate do not amount to real cuts for the tens of thousands of low-income, working people we serve each year with free tax and financial services,” said Tracy Fischman, executive director of Prepare + Prosper. “The proposed Child Tax Credit ‘expansion’ is a prime example of this.”
Proponents of the tax bill are marketing the Child Tax Credit (CTC) expansion as a tax break for families. This key tax credit is supposed to reduce poverty and support hard-working families, yet neither bill does that, and millions of children would be excluded. Specifically, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ estimates, under the Senate CTC plan, a married couple with two children making $24,000 per year would receive a credit increase of just $200, while a married couple making $500,000 would get $4,000, or 20 times as much.
“Meaningful reform to the CTC would target the families who need it most,” said Fischman. “That is parents who are who are earning poverty-level wages and not those making hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. It’s essential that changes to the tax code improve financial security for low-income families, not work against it.”
About Prepare + Prosper – Prepare + Prosper is a nonprofit focused on financial capability for low-income households. It provides free tax preparation and access to financial services and products; builds the capacity of other organizations providing these services; and works to advance policies and practices that directly benefit the people it serves. In 2016, 575 volunteers prepared taxes for 13,227 taxpayers who received $24.7 million in refunds; 1,231 of those taxpayers committed to saving $1.9 million of their refunds.
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