Tax Credit For Adoptive Families will Lower at end of the Year

Tax credit for adoptive families will lower at end of year
August 3, 2012

LAYTON — Time is running out for families who adopt children to receive tax credits.
For 2010 to 2011 tax filings, families across the country can claim a $13,360 refundable tax credit for adopting a child, under the new Affordable Health Care law. This is money that would come in the form of a check to augment a family's income to care for adopted kids. For 2012 taxes, the credit drops to $12,650. By Dec. 31, families will only be eligible to claim $6,000 to help cover adoption expenses.
The cut has many Utahns concerned, especially those who have benefitted from adoption and been aided by the tax credits in the past. Among them is Happie Larson. She has a soft spot in her heart for kids in foster care because as a teenager, she too was in foster care.
"This is not about building roads, this is not about a city park," Larson said. "This is about a child finding a home; that's being threatened and that's just not OK."
Larson and her husband Rich have adopted 15 kids, many of whom have special needs. In total, the couple has 19 children who range in age from 3 to 39.
"There are hundreds of children in foster care that don't have families," said Larson. "Those children are going to continue to remain in foster care if a family does not feel they can financially support the child."
As far as taxes go for families adopting kids, Larson said foster care kids are considered "special needs."
"These are people that are not looking for typical 'healthy,' 'normal' children," Larson said. "These are people that are willing to take children that are abused, neglected, and are deliquent. That is important."
Therefore, the change in tax credits for adopted families, especially those in foster care, would affect many middle-income families who could really use the tax break to buy necessities for the kids.
"That's going to buy you the bed. It's going to buy you the clothing. It's going to set the child up," Larson said. "It's going to open up your heart and your home because you know you can afford to have this child in your home."
And Larson feels many of these foster kids should remain with their siblings, which the drop in tax credits affects.
"Many of the children available for adoption are sibling groups, so you're taking on two, sometimes three children into your home," Larson said. "And the adoption tax credit is just a small incentive to offset some of those expenses."
Since 2011 taxes credits drop to just over $12,000 dollars in non-refundable taxes, that means the credit goes towards any tax liability a family owes. Larson said it helps, but it wouldn't benefit people like her.
"I have no tax liability because of the amount of children that I have, so I would never have a situation where I would have to have a tax to be off-set," Larson said.
While there is bi-partisan support across the country to re-instate the plan, Utah lawmakers haven't signed on to co-sponsor the bills. Instead Utah is working to promote kinship adoptions, which would place foster kids with close relatives. Larson says will hurt kids in foster care.
"What happens when a child doesn't have a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle or can't move out-of-state with a distant family member? That child is here in Utah, and we're limiting that child so it can't be adopted," Larson said.
Larson said many families were adopting foster kids before the Affordable Health Care Act adoption tax credits, so they're not in it for the money.
"Adopting a child and giving them a permanent home now keeps them out of prison. It keeps them from becoming homeless. It keeps them from becoming drug addicted," Larson said. "So the money we spend now to get children into a permanent home saves us in the long run."
The House (HB 184) and Senate (SB 82) bills have been in committee since January 2011 and some Utahns like Larson are not confident any progress will be made to handle the adoption tax credit before Congress resumes.

Things getting better in Foster Care? Not so Fast?

Headlines recently proclaimed that the number of American children in foster care has dropped for the sixth straight year, falling to about 400,000 compared to more than 520,000 a decade ago. Unfortunately, this much-repeated headline significantly understates the size of today's foster care population. The number in the news was a single day's count. Looking at the entire year, 646,000 children spent time in foster care.
Yes, there was still a decline in the foster care population: nearly 20 percent since 2002. But 646,000 is still too many kids. Way too many.
Since the recession began, our advocates have been concerned that, as in past recessions, the number of children coming into care would initially decrease, but for the wrong reasons -- a less capable child protection system would screen out all but the worst cases. Later, after financial stresses took their toll on families, the numbers would increase as kids who initially had been screened out start to show up with more serious problems.
The newly released figures raise some concern that this could happen. Last year was the first year in which entries into foster care exceeded exits since 2006 -- the year before the recession started.
Talk with older youth, and you'll hear that foster care often doesn't work well for them. So it would have been particularly satisfying to learn that a larger percentage of foster youth are being reunited with their parents. But no such luck. The data show that the proportion of foster children reunited with their parents has barely changed since 2006, declining from 53 percent to 52 percent.
And what age group had the most youth in care? Seventeen-year-olds. In fact, 28,432 youth ages 16 to 21 entered the system in 2011.What will happen to them? They are too often surrendered to the world after age 18 unprepared to live without a permanent, legal family connection. The numbers speak loudly here. Fewer than two percent of foster youth over 17 were adopted in 2011, while 26,286 youth had to leave foster care because they were too old to stay. This trend, too, hasn't improved. Eleven percent of youth aged out in 2011, up from 9 percent in 2006.
Don't let the headlines lull you into believing foster care has entered some bright new age. Now more than ever, foster youth need advocates willing to tell the truth about what is happening. Because what is happening is that too many kids are living for too long without a permanent family and a fair start in the world.

How to get past it when match fails?

How to get past it when match fails?

So we were matched the beginning of July with an Emom. We spoke on the phone several times with the agency mediating. Then we went to the state for the delivery. We had dinner first which went very well. She kept telling us we were the perfect family and kept referring to the baby as ours. (which did bother me, I knew the baby was not ours yet)

We had high hopes then things started to unravel. Too much drama to get into on a post but long story short she must have been having second thoughts on placing but I guess didn’t know how to handle the situation properly. Even when asked by the agency as well as myself; “are you changing your mind, it is ok if you are, just let us know” she would deny it and say “no you are the only parents for my child”. She ended up delivering quickly. As we were driving to the hospital she was texting me “hurry my water broke” “your baby is being born”. We got to the hospital too late for the birth and then I received one last text” So sorry I changed my mind”.

I felt like someone punched me in the gut. My husband and I stood there outside the maternity ward stunned. We knew this could happen but the way it happened was hard.

Now we are home and I’m stuck with this pit in my stomach and a hole in my heart. How to we get past this? How do I make this feeling of heartache go away? Part of me wants to give up trying to adopt. It’s too hard. I feel like I have no control and am at the complete mercy of others. Trying to start a family has been one of the worst experiences of my life. Three miscarriages, going about 1 1/2 years with out being chosen, now this failure. It all feels like too much. I just don’t know what to do.