International adoption and tax credits

[Whalljim]

Howdy everyone,

My wife and I have decided that we are going to adopt internationally. We have talked to a few people at Bethany services, and its quite exciting. The question I have is on the tax credit. Once we go through with this, it will just about wipe out what we have in savings. They said, however, that you get a $10k tax credit once the adoption is finalized. I don’t want to sound overly materialistic, but does this mean that we would get $10k less any taxes we owed? Or is it just a tax free year? My guess is that this process will take a bit over a year, so it does give us time to save. But I am a bit nervous at the idea of bringing home a child, having my wife stay home, and then having nothing in savings if things go wrong.

Thanks!

Jimbo

 

[Suse]

Congratulations on considering adoption! We adopted last year, and this was very confusing for us too. If you do your taxes yourself, you may want to consult with a tax person beforehand to explain things to you (and again and again…)

It is a very confusing law. I still don’t fully understand it myself. We recieved part of the $10K back this past tax season because of the taxes we paid last year, but we had to roll the balance of it over to this next tax year. We’re hoping we get the rest back in March.

Pray, pray, pray and trust in God. We knew God wanted us to adopt, but we also knew our finances (or lack there of). My husband and I finally told God, “If this is the path we are to take, you have to get us there. We trust you will give us the financial means to complete this if it is your will.” Surrendering our finances to God was one of the hardest things we had to do, but we did it. We went ahead without knowing fully how it was going to come about, but it all did in the end. I’m not saying we came out debt free, but the debt we have is manageable in our budget.

I wish you luck.

 

[Lynn_Forbes]

Congradulations on your decision to adopt internationally. I have a 2 and 1/2 year old adopted from China. I used part of my tax credit last year, and it can be used for 3 years, until the $10,000 is used up. Also, you apply for the credit the year your adoption is complete. For example, my adoption took about 18+ months, so I had to wait until the 2003 income tax return to get the tax credit. Good luck with everything!

 

[Nicole]

I just wanted to say good luck. The tax credit really did influence our decision to adopt. We thoguht it was something we could never afford and when we heard about that credit, we looked again and decided we could swing it.

As others have said, you never know how it’ll turn out. Ours ended up taking two years and costing a lot more than we thought. But, truly, miracles happened and in the end, things worked out ok. As someone else said, we have debt from it, but it’s manageable and our son is here. Our family is so enriched by his presence.

It really is like jumping off a cliff, but it is worth it.

God Bless, Nicole