Support H.R. 213!

Recently, I ran into a teaser ad (weakly disguised as a public blog post) from an adoption matching service that stated:

ADOPTION TAX CREDIT GOING AWAY IN 2011. ADOPT NOW IN 2010 to take ADVANTAGE OF $12,170 TAX CREDIT.

It is, at best, misleading to simply say that the Adoption Tax Credit is going away this year. Yes, the current credit that is available to families who adopt will be expiring at the end of 2010, so there is a possibility that there will not be a tax credit available for adoptions that are final in 2011 and beyond. However, my first thought on reading that the credit was going away was that the bill to keep the credit available must have been voted on and rejected. This is not the case. H. R. 213 is a bill proposed to repeal the sunset (expiration) on the credit to make it available beyond 2010.

This is a good opportunity to find out if your representatives support this bill and to contact those that have not yet signed on as cosponsors. With the magnitude of the placement and matching fees charged by agencies and facilitators, many hopeful adoptive families would be unable to fund an adoption without the availability of this tax credit.

(The following is courtesy of the R House. View full blog post here)

Help Make the Current Federal Adoption Credit Permanent by Writing to your Representative Here is how: Find the name and Washington, D.C. mailing address of your Representative and Senators at www.congress.org (enter your zip code in the "Get involved" box). To find e-mail addresses, click through to the Senator’s or Congressperson’s Web site.

Next, log on to THOMAS (Library of Congress) to find out whether your Congresspersons are already co-sponsors of the legislation. Here is how:


On the THOMAS opening page, under “Search Bill Summary and Status,” search by bill number for H.R. 213. Then click on “Bill summary and Status.”

(Click to enlarge.)

On the page that comes up, click on “Cosponsors,” “Text of Legislation,” or “All Congressional Actions” to follow the progress of the bill.

If your representatives have not signed on as co-sponsors of the bill, send them your request that they do so. Tell them how important the tax credit was to you when you adopted your children, or how much you and other families you know are counting on it to be available in the future.

Act today, your efforts make a difference.