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Can Tax Credits Have an Impact?
October 7, 2008
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
-Alvin Toffler
Intrigued by the public discussion of taxes during election times — tax cuts, tax credits, and all that? Tax policy is important any time. A recent paper by Louise Stoney and Anne Mitchell, "Using Tax Credits to Promote High Quality Early Care and Education Services," discusses tax policy in regard to early care and education.
 
Tax credits have been used in a variety of policy areas to encourage increased investments in programs seen as “social goods,” such as clean energy and charitable donations. This paper explores financing strategies for early childhood programs by examining whether carefully crafted individual or business tax credits/deductions could...
  1. help finance early care and education;
  2. spur additional private investment; and
  3. create incentives for families to use, and early childhood program to offer, high-quality services.
The researchers examine a range of tax incentives that have been used in other fields and could serve as models for early care and education finance, such as consumer/individual tax credits and deductions; occupational tax credits and deductions; and investment tax credits, deductions and abatements for firms.
 
The findings suggest several recommendations about how to best structure and use tax credits. Among the key points: cost and stability of credits are critical; tax credits must be well linked to high quality “products,” in this case early childhood programs; if high quality programs are desired, parents must have ways to distinguish them, thereby making public education about quality important; and, for the tax credits to be effective, administration should be simple and infrastructure in place.




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Comments (1)

Displaying 1 Comment
Donna McAndrew · October 07, 2008
Pittston, PA, United States


Tax credits are an easy and temporary fix. They start out sounding great, but after debate and compromise, they rarely end up producing the originally desired result. Every legislator addresses their agenda, adding to a bill, and the end result never achieves the goal intended. The income guidelines established for these credits often fall short for the people that are in greatest need. In case the government is not aware, there are a lot of families that are so slightly above many program income guidelines that are really suffering.



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