State slashes tax deduction for dependent children, but
won’t touch Planned Parenthood funding
While California legislators have so far rejected modest cuts in “family planning” funding for Planned Parenthood as a means to help balance a more than $24 billion budget shortfall, lawmakers seem to have no problem targeting families as a way to bolster state revenues.“California parents beware: Those little tax deductions running around the house are now worth less (in a strictly financial sense, of course),” reports the San Francisco Chronicle. “To help balance its budget, California has reduced the state tax credit for dependents.”
The dependent tax credit for state income taxes will be reduced from $309 to about $99 for 2009, the newspaper reported. As a consequence, the dependent credit will be reduced from $309 per child to roughly $99 per child.
“The change will increase a family's California taxes for 2009 by about $210 per dependent compared with 2008,” said the Chronicle. “A family with one dependent that normally gets a state-tax refund will get back $210 less when they file their 2009 return next year. A family that normally owes money will have to pay $210 more. Multiply that by two or more dependents, and it really adds up.”
Noted Chronicle business writer Kathleen Pender in her column ‘Net Worth,’ “This may come as a shock to parents who have been too busy shuttling between soccer games and viola lessons to keep up with the state's budget fiasco.”
“Obviously, cutting $210 from a $300 tax credit per child is a huge tax increase on families,” observed the blog L.A. Catholic. “Economists have a rule: If you want more of something, subsidize it; and if you want less of something, tax it. Anybody who would tax little kids wants fewer of them.”
L.A. Catholic suggested the state’s bishops raise their voices against the change: “Cardinal Mahony and the rest of our California bishops need to denounce this anti-child, anti-family, mammoth tax increase publicly and loudly, don't you think?”
