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The Distributional Effects of the Tax Treatment of Child Care Expenses

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Author Info
William M. Gentry
Alison P. Hagy

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Abstract

Tax relief for child care expenses, encompassing the Child Care Tax Credit and Dependent Care Assistance Plans, is the largest federal government program in the United States aimed at helping families with child care. We examine the distributional effects of these policies among families with children using both the National Child Care Survey and tax return data. Among families that use tax relief, the benefits average 1.24 percent of family income. Benefits as a percentage of income vary systematically over the income distribution. Despite being regressive at low income levels (mainly due to the credit being non-refundable), tax relief is progressively distributed over most of the income distribution with the ratio of benefits to income falling above the bottom quintile of the income distribution. The benefits of tax relief also vary among families with the same income depending on a family's structure and its labor market and child care choices.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 5088.

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Date of creation: Apr 1995
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5088

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Ribar, D.C., 1990. "Child Care And The Labor Supply Of Married Women: Reducted Form Evidence," Papers 9-90-9, Pennsylvania State - Department of Economics.
  2. Martin Feldstein & Daniel Feenberg, 1995. "The Taxation of Two Earner Families," NBER Working Papers 5155, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Rosanne Altshuler & Amy Ellen Schwartz, 1996. "On the Progressivity of the Child Care Tax Credit: Snapshot versus Time-Exposure Incidence," Departmental Working Papers 199416, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
  4. Connelly, Rachel, 1992. "The Effect of Child Care Costs on Married Women's Labor Force Participation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(1), pages 83-90, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Blau, David M & Robins, Philip K, 1988. "Child-Care Costs and Family Labor Supply," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(3), pages 374-81, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Heckman, James J, 1974. "Effects of Child-Care Programs on Women's Work Effort," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(2), pages S136-S163, Part II, . [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Patricia M. Anderson & Philip B. Levine, 1999. "Child Care and Mothers' Employment Decisions," NBER Working Papers 7058, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Patricia Apps, 2001. "Why an Earned Income Tax Credit Program is a Mistake for Australia," CEPR Discussion Papers 431, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. [Downloadable!]
  3. David T. Ellwood & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2000. "The Middle Class Parent Penalty: Child Benefits in the U.S. Tax Code," NBER Working Papers 8031, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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