Tonight, January 20, 2015 at 9PM Eastern, President Barack Obama will deliver the annual State of the Union address. President Obama's State of the Union address will focus on middle-class economics and provide some new proposals to help families offset the burden of child care costs.
Some of the proposals included in the upcoming State of the Union have been released prior to the speech, including a proposal around the child care tax credit. From the President's fact sheet on the proposal:
With the cost of infant and toddler care rivaling the cost of college in many states, the average child care tax benefit of $550 falls well short of what is needed to provide meaningful help to working families. The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit and child care flexible spending accounts are also unnecessarily complex, often requiring significant paperwork and advanced planning for families to receive the full benefits.
The President’s tax proposal would streamline child care tax benefits and triple the maximum child care credit for middle class families with young children, increasing it to $3,000 per child. The President’s child care tax proposals would benefit 5.1 million families, helping them cover child care costs for 6.7 million children(including 3.5 million children under 5), through the following reforms:
The President’s child care tax proposal will complement major new investments in the President’s Budget to improve child care quality, access, and affordability for working families."
The full fact sheet can be found here.