Griffin Works to Cut Costs for Hardworking Families and Make College More Affordable

Press Release

Congressman Tim Griffin (AR-02), a member of the Ways and Means Committee, today released the following statement today after the committee considered two bills to ensure the child tax credit is indexed for inflation and to simplify education tax benefits:

"As the costs to raise a child and pay for college continue to increase, these bills simplify tax provisions to ease the financial burden on American families. These bills eliminate the marriage penalty and index the child tax credit for inflation to ensure the credit's benefits keep pace with the cost of providing for a family, while also making college more affordable by simplifying education tax benefits. These common sense reforms to our tax code let Americans keep more of their hard-earned dollars to help families prosper, which will aid our economy and grow jobs."

The Child Tax Credit Improvement Act (H.R. 4935) eliminates the marriage penalty by increasing the income level at which the child credit begins to phase out from $110,000 for married couples (NOT indexed for inflation) to $150,000 for married couples (indexed for inflation). Indexing the phase-out level of the credit would prevent families from losing benefits just because their incomes rise at the level of inflation.

The Student and Family Tax Simplification Act (H.R. 3393) would consolidate four current tax benefits for higher education into a new, simplified and more valuable American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC). The provision would provide greater tax benefits for education for those students most in need by improving the tax treatment of Pell Grants and the coordination between Pell Grants and the AOTC. This bill was drafted as a result of the bipartisan tax reform working groups created by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (MI-04) and Ranking Member Sander Levin (MI-09).

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