Brown Applauds President's Budget for Boosting Tax Cuts for Working People, Making Sure Big Banks Pay Their Fair Share

Press Release

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) today applauded President Obama's Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 budget proposal for boosting tax credits for working Americans while asking millionaires and big banks to pay more of their fair share. Brown said the President's expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for workers without children is a step in the right direction, but continued his call for an even larger tax credit that would ensure no working American can be taxed into poverty. In December, Brown secured a major victory in the year-end tax extension bill by permanently extending expansions of the EITC and the Child Tax Credit.

Brown's proposal to expand EITC would nearly triple the value of the tax cut for low income workers without children.

"The President's budget proposal provides a roadmap of economic policies that lift up working Americans and provide opportunity for all -- not just the wealthiest -- by investing in educating our kids, training our workers, and making sure children have access to quality health care. The budget asks millionaires and Wall Street banks to pay their fair share while boosting tax credits for working people by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit. Still we need to do even more to put hard earned money back in the pockets of working people, because no one who works hard should be taxed into poverty."

Brown has been the Senate's lead advocate for the EITC and CTC, and pushed to prevent making certain business tax provisions permanent without also making EITC and CTC permanent. In March, Brown introduced the Working Families Tax Relief Act to extend and expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit. This proposal was the basis for the extension of the credits included in the year-end package. Still, Brown wants to see EITC expanded and made permanent for workers without children. Without this expansion, someone working full time on minimum wage can literally be taxed into poverty.

The EITC is a refundable tax credit for low-income Americans that encourages work and helps families make ends meet. In 2012, more than 24 million taxpayers received a lump sum refundable credit through EITC after filing their taxes. The CTC is available for taxpayers with children in the amount of up to $1,000 per child under age 17. Without an extension of the EITC and CTC by 2017, over 13 million families would lose all or part of their EITC or CTC and 16.4 million people would be pushed into poverty or deeper into poverty.

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