Exciting News About the Tax Lady (and the new Child Tax Credit)
The Grim Reaper and I are excited to announce that we are expecting our first child! To those of you whispering that my enlarged belly results from gluttony and lack of exercise, well that’s just hurtful and wrong. We are expecting a bouncing baby demon by year end to take advantage of the new and expanded child tax credit. Tax planning works.
Starting in 2018, the child tax credit is $2,000 and no longer begins phasing out at the old $100K income limit. It now benefits many more people, beginning to phase out at $200K for single taxpayers and $400K for married taxpayers. You get a credit for children under age 17 and a $500 credit for other dependents. The old personal exemptions that you got for just being alive are gone.
While gifts aren’t necessary, if you feel compelled to get us something, child sized pitchforks are always helpful. We are painting the baby’s room hell fire red and decorating using the always popular early American purgatory style.
This year, getting your child a Social Security number is critical, as the credit is not available otherwise. No more entering “applied for” on the tax return.
Also, if you have no tax liability for 2018, the new child tax credit is refundable up to $1,400. So you may want to file a return even if you have no or very low income.
We expect the new child tax credit to help a lot of taxpayers. While we aren’t recommending snatching babies from their mothers, it does make sense from a purely tax standpoint. Let your conscience be your guide.
You may have noticed that we recently e-mailed tax and business articles that we did not produce in house. You can expect us to continue to produce our own material, but I can’t keep up with all of the good information about the new tax law and prepare for the baby at the same time. So we will continue to provide good content wherever we find it.
If you have questions, please e-mail Frank Stitely at fstitely@skcpas.com or call (703) 818-8284.
Thanks for reading!
The Tax Lady