Making the Adoption Tax Credit Permanent

Making the Adoption Tax Credit Permanent

Adoption Action Alert

April 1, 2009/Martha Osborne

The federal adoption tax credit has helped thousands of families say yes to adopting a child. It's vital that this financial support stay in place to help families offest the costs and fees associated with adopting a child. Unfortunately, the tax credit is set to expire in December 2010 unless Congress votes to continue it. It's time to take action!

The Adoption Tax Relief Guarantee Act of 2009, H.R. 213, will keep the adoption tax credit from being repealed, and may make the tax relief measure permanent. It only takes a few minutes to e-mail or call your senators and congressmen. It's important for them to hear from families impacted by the tax credit.

Currently, there are 76 State Senator and Representatives cosponsoring H.R. 213. However, there are 16 states that currently have no sponsors of this bill, including eight on the East Coast (one of the largest areas of the US with internationally adopted children). H.R. 213 is currently in committee, where most bills die. It is imperative that adoptive families, and all friends of children waiting for families, act now.

It only takes a few minutes to write, call or e-mail your representatives. Please do so today!

E-mail Representative: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

E-mail Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Currently, the following states have no cosponsors or commitments of support for H.R. 213:

West Virginia

Delaware

Connecticut

Rhode Island

New Hampshire

Vermont

Massachusetts

Maine

Idaho

Oregon

Montana

South Dakota

New Mexico

Arkansas

Hawaii

The two states offering the greatest support are Texas and Georgia with 6 cosponsors each, closely followed by Pennsylvania with 5. Honorable mentions: Florida, Indiana, Illinois each with 4 sponsorships each.

Pass this on to friends and family, and ask for their help in writing, calling, and posting on blogs and Facebook. To gain momentum, we must have an absolute ground swell of families lifting their voices together for the well-being of children throughout the world.

We Are Registered!!

I got an e-mail from our caseworker that our dossier was registered with the MOJ (Ministry of Justice) on March 30th. We have our registration number and we're "officially" waiting now. It only took 20 days for the dossier to get translated and registered. That's fast!!

Dossier in Bulgaria

Our dossier was delivered to its destination in Bulgaria via Fed Ex on Tuesday morning. It took less than a week to get there. It's nice to know that our paperwork is at least in the right country now.

Our dossier is currently being translated. It usually takes three to four weeks for this to be completed. After the dossier has been translated, the translation will be authenticated by the MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs). This process can take up to four weeks. Once this has been done, it will be sent to the MOJ (Ministry of Justice) where we will be officially registered. And then we wait...

Finished!!

After spending a few weeks gathering the remaining documents and making three trips to the Secretary of State's office, our dossier is officially finished and is ready to be submitted to our agency. They will look it over, and if everything is done correctly, it will be on its way to Bulgaria. The timing worked out perfectly since we were planning to use our tax refund to cover the payment that gets submitted with our dossier. That money will come tomorrow, just in time to mail everything to our caseworker. Once the dossier is in Bulgaria, it will be translated and then sent to the MOJ (Ministry of Justice). The MOJ meets regularly to match children with their new parents. We will probably wait about a year from the time we are registered, although it could be more or less time. I'll post an update once we are registered.

One Step Closer

We received our I-797C (I-171H) last Thursday. This form is issued by the USCIS and allows us to adopt two children from Bulgaria and to bring them back to the United States. We weren’t expecting the form to arrive until mid-February, so it was a huge surprise to see it so soon. Now that we have that form, we’ve been working extra hard to finish the rest of our dossier. We’ve done most of the work and are just waiting on everything to come back to us so we can head to the Secretary of State’s office to have it all apostilled. We’re still waiting on some paperwork from our home study agency, both of our employment letters, and our updated FBI clearances. It seems to be going okay so far, and we’re hoping to send our completed dossier to our caseworker in California sometime next month.