What’s the status of Child Tax Credit payments?

WASHINGTON, D.C. (WTVM) – Many families in the News Leader 9 viewing area, for the first time in six months, will be missing hundreds of dollars.

Those direct payments for tax credits have ended, but they may not be gone forever.

2.1 million children in Georgia and 930,000 in Alabama – that’s how many children qualified for family payments worth hundreds of dollars in the back half of 2021.

The advanced monthly child tax credits expired at the end of the year and there is a push by some to continue this and even make it permanent.

But, big hurdles stand in the way in Washington.

“Let’s get this tax cut done, right? Let’s get that done. Let’s get some momentum. Let’s get some money in people’s pockets. And we just got to get our focus back. And i think we can and there is a lot out there that we need to do, but we’ve got get focused and hit the reset button here,” Ohio Representative Tim Ryan said.

The child tax credit payments were looped into the Build Back Better legislation pushed by President Biden.

That doesn’t appear like it will pass in Congress which would leave the child tax credit payments in peril as a result.

A push for a standalone bill, just for the child tax credit payments, has been discussed as well.

The White House says if the payments are reinstated, they will attempt to work with the treasury to pay retroactively on months where payments were missed – like January of 2022.

If that is the case, families could receive double payments in February.

According to research by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 96% of families in Georgia were using the payments for basic needs like food and house. In Alabama, that number was 91%.

“I’m confident we’ll move forward with the Build Back Better Act, revive the child tax credits,” New York Democrat Representative Hakeem Jeffries said.

That program overall impacts 36 million families in the United States.

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