The first is the adoption tax credit. Last year it was a refundable credit, meaning you don't have to have a certain amount in tax liabilities in order to get the full credit back. You only get to put that on your taxes the year you finalize though, so this is money we don't have access to. This year the credit has gone back to being non-refundable, so you only get back as much as you paid into your federal taxes up to a specified amount. While this is a really nice, it doesn't help with the fact that all your adoption expenses are due up front, not after you get that tax return.
The second is that there are lots of grants available. And this is true, somewhat at least. We originally applied for 4 of them and then just recently for 2 more. Each application took considerable time to fill out, required getting references, and letters of recommendation. Lots and lots of paperwork on top of the already incredibly large amount of other paperwork adoption entails. So, we were quite disheartened when we heard back from each of our 4 original grants that we didn't receive any of them. In fact, in the words of one grant,
This grant cycle we received almost 400 applications with financial
requests approximating $3.5 million dollars. We had $60,000 to award.
So yes, there are lots of grants, but I'm not feeling like the odds are with anyone as far as being awarded one. We haven't heard back from one of them and the other we just heard back from this week. We were accepted (YAY!), but it's not really a grant. There is a little bit of money that will come in from the organization, but essentially what it is, is a way for people to donate to our adoption fund in a tax deductible way. This would have been super helpful to have in place before so many of our friends and family graciously gave to us, but it is what it is and we are so thankful.
So if you would like to give to our little cause, we would be eternally grateful.
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