Is there an upper income limit above which you can't claim the family credit?

Losing the union dues deduction is a big hit.

I think its $400k, MFJ. You should do better with the doubling of the standard deduction. Unless you are paying more than $6k in dues.

I took this to mean, someone other than one of your children --- i.e. grandma & grandpa leaving in your home with you.

So you think dependent children living at home over 16 years of age will qualify?

I'll have to reread that part.

For someone in the 25% marginal tax-bracket, the previous $4,050 exemption was really worth about $1,000 in reduced federal taxes.

You're right, that quote from that article was end of Nov, but the personal AMT came back in the final with higher exemption and most importantly the phase out on the exemption is at 1M for most. The tax advise I think is still valid. The other paragraph was after the final bill came out.

Here's the final AMT gouge:

No, I don't think children over 16 qualify. I was merely saying that it does provide a $500 per family member refundable credit, even for dependents other than qualifying children, which the current law doesn't allow. Under current law, the tax year they turn 17 disqualifies them. Under the new law, they will qualify for then $500 refundable family credit.

Having to retrain our brains to what is deductible and what is not is obviously annoying. For a guy like me (senior wide body F/O with 2 kids) it comes down to a tax savings of around 5k a year if you do all the math. While the personal exemption is gone, the state and local tax is capped at 10k on the schedule A along with the loss of unreimbursed employee expenses, you have to remember that most of these were cancelled out by the AMT. (The AMT also eliminated the personal exemptions). Now with the AMT deduction increased to around $109,000 with the phaseout at $1M, many of us will see the AMT now as a non-player. The child tax credit is $2000 and does not phase out now until $400k and the child has to be 16 or under, but there is an another option of $500 credit for other dependents which are 17 or older or for elderly or disabled parents that you provide more than half of their support.

NPR is usually pro tax the rich, I wonder what has changed?

It just seems like an honest article, not an opinion piece.

My comment was not on the validity of the article, but the choice of subject. Like Homeless epidemics come and go depending on who occupies the White House, the ability of the media to pick and choose subjects is their greatest ability to slant the news.