Mothers in Jail: A Taxing Issue

Maternal pretrial detention inflicts serious economic, personal, and social harms on female-headed households. This essay highlights an additional negative consequence of detaining single mothers pretrial: the potential loss of certain valuable tax benefits provided to families, including the head of household filing status and the earned income, child tax, and child and dependent care tax credits. To be eligible for any of these family tax benefits, a parent needs a “qualifying child.” Among other things, a mother and her child need to live together for over half of the year for the child to be claimed as qualifying. A single mother held in jail pending trial runs the risk of failing to meet this shared residence requirement. Under a regulatory exception, certain temporary absences due to special circumstances are disregarded in determining whether a mother and her child(ren) shared the same principal place of abode for more than one-half of the taxable year. This essay argues that, in all instances, pretrial detention should be treated as a temporary absence since that approach aligns best with existing law, furthers legitimate tax and social objectives, does not conflict with carceral goals, and treats all arrested but not yet convicted mothers (those who are confined to jail pending trial and those who live at home while awaiting trial) the same for tax purposes.