John Spratt: “let me explain to the House how under this Republican bill that we have just passed, compared to the Senate bill, taxes…”

“let me explain to the House how under this Republican bill that we have just passed, compared to the Senate bill, taxes can be raised or child tax credits can be denied to many of our service men and women serving in places like Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan. Let us take for example an E-6, a staff sergeant with two children who makes $29,000. His family will qualify for the full child tax credit, get this, so long as he stays stateside, in the United States. His pay is $29,000. He has to make more than $10,500 to qualify. Subtract the 105 from the 29, you get 18.5; multiply it by 15, he is fully qualified for two child tax credits at $1,000 apiece. Now let us assume that he is assigned to Iraq, Afghanistan, or a combat zone. His pay while he is in a combat zone is tax-exempt. Let us assume he stays there 8 months. That is two-thirds of the year. Two-thirds of his income is therefore tax-exempt. It is not considered to be taxable income. His taxable income, therefore, is about $9,700, less than the $10,500 threshold. As a consequence, for serving in Iraq, serving in Afghanistan, he loses the two child tax credits. Is this necessary? Absolutely not. The Senate bill avoided this problem. The language was there in the Senate bill. For some reason that has yet to be explained to these service members, much less the whole House. We do not know why it was dropped; we just know it was dropped.”