Adoption Today

Financial Resources for Adoptive Parents

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:30:00 GMT

Financial Resources

With proper financial planning, adoption can be an affordable option for many families. Whether you're interested in adoption grants or loans, the list below includes some of the resources available to prospective adoptive parents.

Employee Benefits Program

Many companies and organizations offer benefits such as leave or financial assistance to their employees who are adopting. Your employee benefits office will be able to tell you if your company participates, or you can search The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces List to see if your company is listed.

IRS Tax Benefits

Federal Adoption Tax Credit after 2011

The adoption tax credit is refundable for both 2010 and 2011. Under current law (which could still be changed), the tax credit is as follows in 2012 and 2013:

2012 — The tax credit will be $12,650 per child. Families who adopt children with special needs will be able to claim the full credit regardless of their qualified adoption expenses. Other adopters will have to have qualified adoption expenses.

The credit will NOT be refundable, meaning that families can benefit only if they have federal income tax liability. Just as before 2010, families will claim the credit with their 2012 taxes, use what they can that year, and then can carry any remaining credit forward for five additional years until the credit is used up or time runs out.

We strongly encourage everyone who is eligible to claim the credit even if they will not benefit in 2012. It is possible families’ tax situations will change in future years or that the credit might become refundable again.

2013 — Only families who adopt special needs children from foster care will be eligible for up to $6,000 in the adoption tax credit. However, the credit will be based on expenses so families would need to have qualified adoption expenses to claim any credit. The credit will not be refundable, so families can benefit only if they have federal income tax liability. The income limits for the credit will also be reduced significantly in 2013, meaning that families with higher incomes will not benefit.

The adoption credit was made permanent for special needs adoption when the credit was first created. Credits for other adoptions are time limited and are scheduled to end by December 31, 2012.

For more information, please visit the

IRS Adoption Credit website, or by reading NCFA's Adoption Advocate No. 21, "Tax Benefits for Adoption: The Adoption Tax Credit."

Adoption Benefits for Military Personnel

Military service members who adopt a child under 18 years of age may be reimbursed qualified adoption expenses up to $2000 per adoptive child (up to a total of $5000 if more than one child is adopted) per calendar year. Read more about adoption benefits for military personnel on the Military Family Association website.

Adoption Grants and Loans

Adoption Without Debt

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 22:16:00 GMT

We recently came across an article from one of Dave Ramsey's
newletters that may be of interest. Though this family adopted internationally, their book may be of interest to all kinds of adoptive families.

How To Adopt Without Debt

We Adopted Without Debt! Julie Gumm and her husband have adopted two children and didn't go into a dime of debt to do it.

Recently on The Dave Ramsey Show, Dave interviewed Julie Gumm, author of the new book, Adopt Without Debt: Creative Ways to Cover the Cost of Adoption. Julie and her husband have adopted two children and didn't go into a dime of debt to do it.

Here are some of the highlights of that interview.

Dave: When did your family start your debt-free journey?

Julie: My husband started listening to your radio show, but it was really when we attended one of your Live Events back in 2000 that kind of got us started on our debt-free journey. We paid off about $30,000 in consumer debt, which took us about nine months. We ended up bringing Financial Peace University (FPU) to our church and leading it for several years. We started working the Baby Steps. It was about November 2007 when we paid off our mortgage. That was kind of our last big debt hurdle.

Where in this process did adoption talk start?

Julie: When we paid off debt and suddenly had some of that money freed up to do other things, my husband and I realized we'd gotten used to doing without and giving up things. When we had the money to do them, they weren't really that important anymore. We just started looking at ways that we could give generously. That opened our eyes to the needs around us in our local community and internationally. That ended up in our adoption story.

My husband was reading Scripture one day and came across James 1:27 that says, "Religion that is pure in fault, care for the widow and orphan in their distress." We had to really decide what that looked like for us. What does caring for the orphan look like for us? It doesn't mean adoption for everybody. We really felt God leading us to adoption and then looked at the different ways that we could do that. God told us specifically that there were these two amazing children in Ethiopia who were eight and six at the time. They were meant for our family.

How do you adopt without going $50,000 in debt?

Julie: There are basically three ways that I talk about in the book. One of them is finding money you already have—which hopefully, your listeners are starting to do a budget, cut costs, and trim expenses that they already have.

The second is grants. There are 27 different grant organizations I found that are trying to give money away to adoptive families. You can apply for those.

The third one is creative fundraising ideas. There are all kinds of stories that adoptive families gave me. There are 25 families I featured in the book with different creative ideas that they've done to raise funds for their adoption.

So what are some of the coolest fundraising ideas you've heard people do?

Julie: One I absolutely love is kind of a combination grant and fundraising. It's called the Both Hands Foundation, and it actually uses the adoptive family and a team of their family and friends doing a work project at a widow's home and raising funds from family and friends as they do that to help with adoption costs. I just think it's a really cool pairing of that Scripture. The average family who does one of these Both Hands projects raises $10,000 for their adoption expenses, which is unbelievable.

Listen to Dave's entire 10-minute interview with Julie Gumm.

About Julie Gumm

Julie is married to her high-school sweetheart and is the mother of four children from two continents. She and her husband, Mark, finished paying off $235,000 in debt, including their house, in 2007. They have been dreaming and living God-sized, debt-free dreams ever since. Julie blogs about their crazy, fun-filled life at fourplusmore.com.

She loves networking with other adoptive parents and speaking to groups on adoption, global orphan care and debt freedom.

WELCOME

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:21:00 GMT

We are enhancing our website with a new feature... "Adoption Today". We want to share articles, links and resources pertinent to current adoption practices.