The US Internal Revenue Code (IRC) contains several statutes that provide significant financial support for children and families.  These provisions include the dependency exemption, child tax credit, earned income tax credit, head of household filing status, child and dependent care credit, and health insurance premium tax credit.  Each of these provisions’ eligibility requirements have slightly different definitions of the family unit, primarily based on the family structure of a traditional, dual parent family with biological or adopted children.  Many families, including indigenous and immigrant families and multi-generational households, are excluded from receiving the important tax benefits for families, either directly as a result of these archaic definitions or indirectly by burdensome procedural requirements.

The Center for Taxpayer Rights is dedicated to improving tax administration in the US and globally, with a focus on protecting taxpayer rights.  For the last three years, with funding from RWJF’s Healthy Children and Families (HCF) and Global Learning initiatives, we have been studying how countries are using the tax laws and tax agencies to provide benefits to families and children, in an effort to improve US tax administration of social benefits administered through the tax code.  For the last year, we have focused specifically on how other countries define the family unit or household unit in the context of either tax benefits or social safety net benefits.  Identifying the challenges in administering these different definitions, including identifying what family structures are included or excluded, and the underlying policy reasons for such definitions, enable us to make recommendations to policymakers for reforming tax provisions and programs related to families, so that they may be more inclusive and reflective of current US family structures, thereby improving the health and welfare of excluded and marginalized populations.

At our conference, we will have presentations from experts from the US and other countries, including reporting the results of our research, leading to both administrative and legislative recommendations for positive change that increases access to tax benefits for family and children.