This is a very good article from the New York Times on the real impact of the Adoption Tax Credit. Creating a Family is proud to stand with Save The Adoption Tax Credit in the efforts to protect this credit that benefits so many families built by adoption. Here’s an excerpt:

“We were able to pay some fees associated with adoption in cash. With our older son, now 8, we became parents much more quickly than we’d anticipated, and shuffled the balance of the expenses onto a credit card. That piece of debt quickly became abstract, as debt tends to; it was simply part of the larger financial picture that became more complicated once we had a small baby: health insurance, child care, clothes, diapers, those ridiculous swim and music classes that parents like us always seem to fall for. It was helpful to remember that this credit was in the offing; claiming it, and watching my tax bill effectively eliminated, felt like magic.

Giving money to charity or converting your home to green energy are behaviors deemed beneficial enough to society that they’re worth encouraging via tax credits and deductions. Since 1996, the federal government has determined that making a family via adoption is similarly beneficial to society, and rewarded that choice with a tax credit….

My family’s security and survival were not contingent upon this credit by any means, but we are undoubtedly better off for it, a rung higher on the ladder to the middle class, an inch nearer to being able to send our sons to college. I am pained to imagine the family that wants to adopt but decides it can’t because of the costs….

Adoptive parents are not saviors deserving of some special subsidy. (Though I would argue that those families who adopt children with special needs, which is not what my family has done, deserve the wholesale financial support of the federal government.) But tax incentives reward actions that positively affect society. Creating stable family units — which will, in turn, raise yet another American taxpayer — is as worthy as installing rooftop solar cells or leaving your fortune to your church.

In the context of the federal budget, the $355 million that this credit costs the country is a paltry sum. No politician who is willing to discard this tax rule can claim to have the interests of American families at heart.”

Do yourself a favor and read the whole article. Then share it. Specific ideas for how to share your message with your representatives can be found on the Take Action! page here.