My Passionate Balance: Save the Adoption Tax Credit

Huge favor to ask. Will you please take 10 minutes to help save the Adoption Tax Credit? This credit currently provides $12,650 for families who adopt and greatly helps offset the costs of adoption. Read more here: http://adoptiontaxcredit.org/. It is set to expire at the end of 2012. Here are the steps:

1. Find your Representatives:

http://house.gov/representatives/find/

4. Copy and paste the letter into a contact form on that representative's website.

I finally sent this letter to both senators and our house representative tonight, and it was super easy! I am embarrassed to admit this, but it was the first time I've actually?contacted a government?official. Knowing?how easy it is makes me want to do it more often in the future. Here is the letter I sent (with a personal addition in blue):

Dear Representative/Senator _________________:

I am writing to ask you to support the adoption tax credit, which is set to expire on December 31, 2012. Since 1997, the adoption tax credit has helped tens of thousands of parents offset the high cost of adoption, making it possible for them to provide children with loving, permanent families.

The adoption tax credit is especially important to me and my family because we are just beginning our adoption journey to adopt a child born with cleft lip/cleft palate from China. This calling occurred about 15 months after our second son was born with a cleft lip here in Indiana. We are SO fortunate to have an amazing plastic surgeon, Dr. Havlik, at Riley Hospital for Children who can help these sweet children. In their home countries, they are unwanted and unloved, outcasts in their societies. Employment is usually difficult, if not impossible. Indiana has such amazing resources to help orphans, and saving this tax credit will ensure that families will be able to offset the high costs in helping sweet orphans all around the world. ?

If Congress does not take action, the current adoption tax credit will expire at the end of 2012. The credit will be reduced to $6,000, and will only benefit the few families that adopt children with special needs and have qualified adoption expenses. Most families adopting children from foster care, intercountry adoption, and domestic infant adoption will not receive any benefit. Without the adoption tax credit, many parents hoping to adopt will be unable to do so, and others will face great financial hardship. The adoption tax credit is essential to ensuring that as many children as possible find the forever families they deserve and ensuring that those families are in a more stable financial position to provide an environment where children can thrive.

The adoption tax credit must be extended to help as many children as possible find the permanent, loving family they need and deserve. And for 2012 it should be made refundable again so that most adoptive families will benefit from it. The best adoption tax credit would be permanent, refundable, inclusive of all types of adoption, and remain a ?flat? tax for children with special needs. Enclosed, for your reference, is a factsheet with more information about the adoption tax credit.

On behalf of the countless children waiting to be adopted, and the many thousands of families that stand to benefit from the adoption tax credit, thank you for your attention to this important issue.

?Sincerely,

Amy Abell

A huge thank you, in advance, to those of you who will follow through! I have had over 1,300 hits on my blog posts relating to adoption, and if our senators and representatives received even 325 email about saving the adoption tax credit in the next 48 hours, we might just get their attention! How awesome would that be??

Source: http://babyabell.blogspot.com/2012/09/save-adoption-tax-credit.html

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