Missouri legislators hope one of the bills they’ve sent to the governor will lead to more children being adopted into loving homes.
Representative Hannah Kelly (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
One of the provisions in Senate Bill 24 would expand Missouri’s adoption tax credit, which offers a nonrefundable tax credit for one-time adoption-related expenses such as attorney fees, up to $10,000 per child. That credit is capped at $6-million a year. SB 24 would remove that cap, makes the tax credit refundable, and would have the per-child limit adjust with inflation.
Those proposed changes are now awaiting action by Governor Mike Parson (R), and their House sponsor, Hannah Kelly (R-Mountain Grove), couldn’t be happier.
More than 2,200 Missouri children are awaiting adoption. Representative Keri Ingle (D-Lee’s Summit) once worked as an adoption specialist with the state Children’s Division, and said most of the families who would adopt those children see the system as complicated and laced with prohibitive expenses.
The bill is especially personal for Kelly, who talks often to her colleagues and in public settings about her own experience adopting her then-teenage daughter.
Representative Keri Ingle (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Ingle said even as other issues have caused tension between her party and Republicans there has been a lot of cooperation on issues like this one, and she’s been glad to be a part of it.
The House’s final vote on SB 24 was 139-5. It now awaits the governor’s decision to either sign it into law, veto it, or allow it to become law without his action.