Parentella

Today President Obama signed into law a controversial tax cut package. This package has gotten a lot of press, but most of the media coverage focuses on the contentious issues of tax cuts for high income earners and the extension of unemployment benefits for the long term unemployed. But how does this bill affect me and you as parents and teachers?

The bill provides:

• A $250 deduction for out-of-pocket classroom expenses by teachers, for 2010 and 2011.
• A more generous $1,000 child tax credit.
• A series of tax breaks for students and their families, including interest deduction for student loans and an exemption for employer-provided educational assistance.
• A deduction for tuition and related expenses for higher education, for 2010 and 2011.
• A tax credit of up to $2,500 for students’ higher education expenses.
• Marriage penalty relief, increasing the standard deduction for married couples.
• A more generous Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income families.
• Spares more than 20 million middle-income households from tax increases averaging $3,900 from the Alternative Minimum Tax in 2010 and 2011.
• Provides a one-year Social Security tax cut for all wage earners, from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent.
• Lower rates for taxpayers at every income level

This excerpt is from the Joint Committee on Taxation. I only selected the items that apply to the majority of people who read this site. If you are interested in understanding the extent of all the tax cuts provided, please see the document.

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Written by Christi Grab, Parentella’s Editorial Director and author of  The Unexpected Circumnavigation: Unusual Boat, Unusual People Part 1 – San Diego to Australia.  She is currently working on book two of the series.

Related posts:

1. Educational News Tidbits
2. Senate Passes Bill to Fund Education Jobs
3. Community College Initiatives by President Obama
4. House Approves State Aid Bill
5. Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act Passed House

Tags: tax breaks for parents, tax breaks for students, tax breaks for teachers, tax cuts

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 18th, 2010 at 12:01 am and is filed under Christi Grab, Colleges, Current News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.