How this instrument works
The Build Back Better Act, as the House passed it in November 2021, would have extended the pandemic-era Child Tax Credit past its scheduled expiration: $3,600 for each child under 6 and $3,000 for each child 6 through 17, in place of the flat $2,000 current law pays for any qualifying child regardless of age. The bill stalled in the Senate and was never enacted, so this instrument models a specific piece of proposed legislation, not a live tax rule.
The phase-out here works differently from the credit's ordinary mechanics: only the enhancement above the pre-2021 baseline shrinks as income rises, falling by $50 for every $1,000 a household's income exceeds the $150,000 married-filing-jointly threshold the bill used. That reduction stops once it has clawed back the enhanced portion in full, leaving a floor of $2,000 per child — the same amount current law already guarantees most families regardless of income.
It excludes the rest of the bill's family provisions — the shift to monthly advance payments and the removal of the earned-income requirement — and covers only the credit amount and its income-based reduction. A policy analyst checking a House-passed figure, a journalist fact-checking a claim about the credit 'returning,' or a household that received the 2021 amount and wants to see what a revival bill would restore can all use it for that one narrow comparison.
- Enter your family's count in Children under 6 and Children age 6-17 — the two age bands carry different maximum amounts.
- Type your yearly figure into Household income, $.
- Leave Phase-out threshold (MFJ), $ at its $150,000 default, or edit it to test the bill's other filing-status thresholds.
- Read Maximum enhanced credit for the full $3,600/$3,000 total before any reduction, and Total Child Tax Credit under the proposal for what income brings it down to.
Worked example — one child under 6, one age 6-17
Set Children under 6 to 1, Children age 6-17 to 1, Household income, $ to 75000, and leave Phase-out threshold (MFJ), $ at its 150000 default. Maximum enhanced credit sums $3,600 for the younger child and $3,000 for the older one, giving $6,600 before any income-based reduction is applied.
Because $75,000 sits below the $150,000 threshold, the max(0, income − phaseoutStart) term in the reduction formula evaluates to zero, so nothing is subtracted from the maximum. Total Child Tax Credit under the proposal reads $6,600 — the full enhanced amount the House-passed bill would have delivered to this two-child household at this income, matching what the American Rescue Plan actually paid for tax year 2021 alone.
Questions
Did the Build Back Better Child Tax Credit ever become law?
No. The House passed the Build Back Better Act in November 2021 with this enhanced credit inside it, but the bill died in the Senate and was never enacted. The $3,600/$3,000 amounts this instrument models actually applied only to tax year 2021, under the separate American Rescue Plan; every year since, the credit has reverted to the pre-2021 $2,000-per-child rule with no age split.
How is this different from the Child Tax Credit under current law?
Current law pays every qualifying child under 17 a flat $2,000, phasing out $50 per $1,000 of income over $400,000 for joint filers or $200,000 for others, with no distinction by age. This proposal would have raised the amount to $3,600 for children under 6 and $3,000 for children 6-17, lowered the joint-filer threshold to $150,000, and reduced only the enhancement above $2,000 — never the base amount itself.
Why does the credit stop falling at $2,000 per child instead of reaching zero?
The formula floors the reduction at the size of the enhancement — the amount above the pre-2021 baseline — so the phase-out can only claw back the extra $1,600 or $1,000 per child the proposal added, not the $2,000 base current law already provides most families regardless of income. A household well above the threshold sees Total Child Tax Credit under the proposal settle at $2,000 per child, never $0.
Why does the tool ask separately for children under 6 and children 6-17?
The proposal paid a different maximum for each band: $3,600 for a child who has not yet turned 6 by year-end, $3,000 for one who has, up through age 17. Both counts are needed because Maximum enhanced credit sums the two bands at their separate rates before the income-based reduction runs.
Who actually uses a calculator for a bill that never passed?
A policy analyst or journalist checking a specific dollar claim about the stalled 2021 expansion, a household that received the enhanced credit for 2021 and wants to see what a revival bill would restore, or anyone comparing the House-passed text against the flat $2,000 credit currently in force. It answers one narrow question — what this exact, never-enacted formula would pay — not what any household is owed today.
Does the $150,000 phase-out threshold apply to single filers too?
This instrument uses the $150,000 married-filing-jointly figure from the House-passed bill, entered as Phase-out threshold (MFJ), $ so it can be edited. The Build Back Better Act as introduced set lower thresholds for other filing statuses; change the field to model those instead — the reduction math runs the same way regardless of which threshold is entered.
References
Read this first: This instrument shows arithmetic, not advice. Real offers add fees, taxes and terms that vary by lender and place — verify the figures against your actual paperwork before deciding anything.