Mark’s Plan to Support Family Caregivers with Tax Credits

Family caregiving is work performed out of love rather than for a wage. It includes childcare, shopping, transport, medication, appointments and overnight supervision, often while the carer also holds a paid job. The hidden cost is therefore both financial and emotional, and those hours rarely appear in economic statistics.

The archived campaign of Mark DeSaulnier for the U.S. House presented family caregivers as a constituency whose contribution deserved fiscal recognition. Its tax-credit approach treats care as a shared public responsibility while keeping the immediate focus on households paying for day-to-day care.

The Economics of Care in Family Households

Care at home can save public budgets, but shifting responsibility to relatives does not make the underlying need disappear. Families buy childcare, hire home workers, modify bathrooms, cover travel and reduce working hours. A tax credit can relieve these cash costs, although it cannot replace respite care, accessible housing or a trained workforce.

Australian households often recognise the strain as that of the “sandwich generation”: adults supporting children and ageing parents. In Sydney and Melbourne, high housing and childcare costs leave less room for unpaid care, while families in regional New South Wales or Tasmania can face long journeys to schools, clinics and specialist services. A flexible tax credit could help with recurring expenses, provided it does not exclude carers whose income or tax circumstances differ.

Mark’s Refundable Tax Credit Plan

At the centre of Mark’s proposal is a refundable federal tax credit for eligible family-care costs. A tax credit reduces tax by a dollar for each dollar of qualifying expense; making it refundable means households with little or no federal tax liability can still receive the benefit. That distinction is essential for lower-income carers, who are often least able to front substantial care bills.

His wider tax argument appears in the campaign discussion of higher education tax credits, which reflects the same principle: public assistance should reach households that need relief, rather than disappearing for families whose tax bill is already small. A caregiver credit could build on the existing child and dependent care framework, with Congress setting eligibility, expense rules, income phase-outs and annual dollar limits.

Designing the Credit Around Real Families

Eligibility must recognise how care actually happens. A rigid definition tied only to children or a narrow medical category would exclude parents supporting an adult child, partners of disabled adults, and relatives caring for an older person. Conversely, the credit should support care that is necessary and paid for without creating payment for a family member’s ordinary participation in household life.

The design also needs to account for different Australian and American patterns of work. Many carers combine paid employment with care; some take leave, reduce hours or leave work altogether. Relief reaches them best when credits are predictable, cover a realistic share of costs and remain available across tax years as care needs change.

Four features would make the credit more practical:

• Refundable payments for households with little or no tax liability
• Income phase-outs that taper rather than eliminate assistance abruptly
• Clear eligible expenses covering different forms of paid care
• Support that remains available as a carer’s hours or circumstances change

Australian Realities and Broader Comparisons

Australian policy provides a useful benchmark, though its system differs from the American one. Eligible carers may receive Carer Allowance or Carer Pension through Services Australia and Centrelink, while home-care packages help older residents buy support at home. The aged-care market faces persistent workforce shortages, and Medicare generally does not function as an insurer of ongoing daily care. Families can therefore face a gap between public income support and actual expenses.

Broader comparisons can sharpen the principle without importing another country’s system wholesale. The SNP’s account of Scotland’s care vision presents social care as shared social infrastructure, not a burden that should fall entirely on women or exhausted relatives. Scotland’s devolved tax and care arrangements are distinct, yet the emphasis on public responsibility travels well to Australia and the United States.

Here, a broad-based tax credit would need careful interaction with the Carer Allowance, Medicare, aged-care funding and state disability services. Its value would come from filling a clear gap: eligible care spending that existing benefits do not meet, without withdrawing support when a family starts claiming the credit.

Comparing and Delivering the Policy

Compared with Australia’s mix of income support, service funding and tax deductions, Mark’s model uses one visible instrument: relief on a tax return. Its strength is portability and clarity for claimants. Its weakness is that tax filing can exclude people without straightforward returns, and annual rules may lag fast-rising care costs.

Credits also reward purchasing power rather than the act of providing unpaid care. That is appropriate when the aim is to offset childcare, personal assistance, transport and home modifications, but it means family members should not be treated as a substitute for a paid workforce. Public investment remains necessary for quality, safety and respite.

Three implementation safeguards would improve delivery:

• Advance payment options for households facing urgent care costs
• Indexed income limits and care-cost thresholds
• Plain-language guidance through tax agents and care services

The main policy contrasts are clear:

Feature	Mark’s U.S. campaign proposal	Australian reference point
Main instrument	Refundable federal tax credit tied to qualifying care expenses	Carer Allowance, Carer Pension and care-related deductions
Eligible recipients	Families with care expenses and income within phase-out rules	Carers meeting income and care-needs tests
Role of families	Purchases support while relatives remain unpaid partners in care	Public services supplement care provided within families
Access route	Federal tax return and annual filing	Services Australia, Centrelink and aged-care assessment

The archived campaign’s campaign endorsements records the public coalition behind this approach. The plan’s strongest case rests on a practical bargain: families should receive meaningful relief when care costs rise, while governments retain responsibility for safe services, respite and a workforce capable of supporting families without eroding them.