How Much of YOUR Tax Dollars are Bailing Out Adoptions?

It was recently pointed out to me by the most astute adoptee, Julie Kelly, that many times adoption fundraisers requested that people send their donations directly to a church in order to have that gift be tax deductible.  The church collects the money for the perspective adoption couple and then can award it to them in a form of a grant or even a loan to pay the adoption expenses. The adoptive couple can then take the adoption expenses and use them to receive the adoption tax credit.

Laundering Adoption Funds Through the Tax Exempt Church

They don’t pay taxes on the monetary income they receive as it is laundered through the church. Churches don’t pay taxes. The donating people get a tax break. And then, they get the adoption tax credit/refund.

Can someone please explain to me how this is not our tax dollars going to fund people’s adoptions? The way I see it, there is a decent amount of tax dollars funding private adoptions. So I started looking into all the ways that the adoption industry gets federal money and tax breaks. Honestly, I do not know why I am shocked and dismayed every time I look into something like this. You would think I expect it by now, but I tell you; my jaw continues to drop every time.

When it’s OK to Use Tax Money and Beg for Help: Adoption

So this pretend couple, we’ll call them the Lovies, desire to adopt a child.  They contact the Happy Stork Adoption Agency who tells them that the “fees” for a domestic infant adoption is 4O thousand dollars.  The Lovies have10K in savings, but need to scramble for the rest, so they decide to do the whole Adoption Fundraiser thing.

Now the Lovies are part of a church community that is very “orphan sensitive”. If you have not read Kathryn Joyce’s The Child Catchers, you should as it will explain in beautiful detail the whole connection between churches and adoption. It’s crazy huge and collecting funds for and encouraging the congregation members to adopt is a big thing.  The Lovies church believes in adoption and the pastor has even adopted himself. This is something,  I might add, that is encouraged with “Pastor Scholarship Grants“; if a pastor adopts then others in the church are more likely to adopt. You can get a whole community just gung ho on adoption and all putting their funds in like crazy cakes to “save” babies.

So the Church is happy to help out the Lovies. They have special collections, bake sales and such to help the Lovies make money for the adoption. Now, the Lovies, encourage their friends and family and strangers that they beg for money online to make out there donations to the church so they do not get taxed. The church, being a church, is a 501c and therefore tax exempt from calling the “donations” as income, and paying taxes on anything like purchases for the fundraisers or taxes on the land used, etc.

Grandma and Grandpa Lovie give 10K though the church and get a nice tax write off. Other family members and friends also pony up and another  11K is given with t-shirts sales  and bake sales and online auctions and the like.  The church then can give the Lovies their money as a grant or a loan.

Now Mr. Lovie is in the service so the military will reimburse active-duty personnel for most one-time adoption costs up to $2,000 per child, whether adopting a domestic infant, an older child in the U.S., or a child from another country. Reimbursement is made only after the adoption is finalized and only if the adoption was completed through a state adoption agency or a nonprofit private agency which the “Happy Stork Agency” is, though the Lovies will have to wait before they get this.  Additionally an adopted child with special needs may be eligible for monthly financial assistance under the military’s Program for Persons with Disabilities, but the Lovies are holding out for a fresh baby.

Maybe Mrs. Lovie gets assistance through her job and another 5K is put towards the adoption. I hear Target does this too.

The Lovies then give the money to the Happy Stork Agency. The Happy Stork Agency pays their workers and then also pays off their offices and the “birthmother expenses”. Of course, part of the expenses are medical, but the Happy Stork Agency makes sure that all their expectant moms either have their own insurance or are covered under state medical services.  Medicaid pays for more than 40 percent of all births nationally  with an average of $9,131 for vaginal births and $13,590 for Caesarean deliveries in 2011, so out of the 40K paid by the Lovies for the Adoption, the Federal government pays 10K in the medical fees that go to the expectant mother.

Once the Lovies complete the adoption, they will get the federally funded Adoption Tax credit which is 12,970 for the 2013 tax years. On top of that, there is also the EXCLUSION which basically says, that IF you make under a certain amount, even if you received money FOR the adoption expenses, you do NOT have to claim that money as income and you STILL get the tax credit.

Gifting and Funding Towards a Free baby for Adoption

So right now, the Lovies’ Adoption Fund looks like this:

•   40,000 in Adoption “fees”
• -10,000  in savings
•   30,000
• -10,000 “gift” via the church from parents
•   20,000
• –11,000 church fundraising
•     9,000
•    -5,000 employer assistance grant ( or Target, whatever)
•     4,000 left over costs and the Lovies decide to take out a small personal loan to complete their adoption.

AFTER the adoption is done, then….

•     -4,000 ( from the loan)
•    +2,000 military reimbursement
•     – 2,000 ( still due on loan)
• –12, 970 Adoption Tax Credit and pay off remainder of loan
• 10,970 refunded which is $970.00 more than their original investment!

Ok, so I understand that it’s hardly THIS simple, but it IS possible. And proving that a hypothetical pre-adoptive  couple could actually bank a profit when adopting is not the point.  I don’t have a huge issue with a bit of tax evasion and double dipping. I don’t even have a problem that there are loans and grants and what have you to allow  the -not-rolling-in-dough to adopt. I actually would rather prefer adoption be for “regular” folks as opposed to the “fees” making adoption be a privilege of the wealthy.

My BIGGEST issue is that all of the above seems fine and dandy for most people.  “Adoption Funding” is a big huge enterprise and completely acceptable. It is sanctioned by society; people wish them luck  and churches pray for the money to be rolling in and it does!

As I have said before and will keep on saying, the amount of “fees’ in adoption is inane and ludicrous. We cannot even begin to believe adoption CAN BE ethical at all until  we get the insane levels of money OUT! And that means that people who want to adopt stop jumping through hoops and doing these insane financial gymnastics to appease the money grubbing agencies. Remember it’s a freakin’ business and adoption COST so much because the DEMAND for babies is so high.

But no.. we just keep finding ways to pay for children. Getting all creative and crafty. It’s beginning to sound a lot like laundering money for drugs if you ask me, but it gets better!

Adoption Funds? God’s Work or Ponzi Schemes??

Now let’s enter the professional “Adoption Funds”;  I looked into the well known ABBA Fund which is really.. some kind of giant adoption loan ponzi scheme.  The ABBA fund takes over the administration of “adoption ministries” for the church, they match dollar to dollar up to an amount, they provide interest free “loans” to adoptive parents. Note the words “loan” so that the “income” is not required to be noted on the IRS exclusion and the entire amount of the “loan” can be claimed on the Adoption Tax Credit. ABBA Fund’s typical loans are in the $6,000-$8,000 range and they desire to be “paid back” in chuck with the tax credit. Of course, this is so they can continue to give out more “loans”. All I know is that at the end of 2012 on their 1099’s the ABBA Fund had $2,615,275 in assets. Now here’s the “funny” thing. They say that they gave out $162,612 in “grants and other assistance to individuals in the United states”. Their “mortgage” was more than that. Helping or making money hand over fist?

The ABBA Fund isn’t the only one by any means. There are tons of other organizations, like Adopttogether, which are created as 501c to collect donations that are tax exempt and then give back that money as “grants.”  The parent 501c, “The Hoping Hearts Foundation Inc” doesn’t have any financial documents available, but does have an “income” of $485,951. Very curious.

But then we have the bonzi! Here is “Both Hands” which also does Adopting Church Funding and THEY are administered by Lifesongs for Orphans.  I wish I was a tax accountant so I could be more clear about what I am reading. This “LifeSongs”  got NINE MILLION in “grants” and says to be 99% plus supported by the public? I can’t tell if they received Adoption Assistance grants from the government in the tune of 3 plus million or they gave OUT adoption assistance grants of the same.  All I know is that they have their fingers in almost every single pie- “Saving Orphans” all over the place with buckets of money. Oh, and they are tax exempt, too.

Menawhile, all these nice “non profit” 501c are not only tax exempt and give that tax deductions to the people who donate to them, but then, they are edible for federal grants.  I lost about three hours of my day today trying to navigate my way though the Administration for Children and Families Grant site. I think I would rather rip my baby toe nails off, but I found enough to prove my point.

Adoption Opportunities  : The Adoption Opportunities program was established in 1978 (P.L. 95-266) and was most  recently reauthorized in 2003 (P.L.108-36, with CAPTA). Traditionally, it is always reauthorized along with CAPTA. In 2010 Adoption Opportunities was funded at $26 million. Plus the  evil Adoption Awareness ($13 million in 2010 given to the National Council for Adoption which is the adoption lobby group and other “nonprofit agencies like NY’s Adoption Star), but these numbers are small change. What I am trying to find out is if non state run adoption service can get federal funding in “adoption services”..and here we go:

Adoption Exchange Association, Inc; I am not too sure what they do, but ask people to become members? They run the AdoptUS Kids ads? I can’t figure it out but they have millions.  MILLIONS!! And I think they “provide information” and encourage people to adopt?? Ok, I provide information and encourage people to parent.  I. Do . Not. Have . Millions.  Yeah, I got annoyed going though the grant recipients today. The lists of lists are here.

Ah, I digress! The point is that damn! There is literally millions of dollars in federal grant money given out to all these 501 c nonprofit  educational “organizations” and adoption agency like places. I haven’t even TOUCHED the federal and state subsidies for foster to adopt situations at all.

What I had set out to do was find ONE real couples adoption fundraiser and their one church and their one adoption agency and somehow TRY to figure out how much of all that money was either tax exempt or federally funded, but I got lost. What I have discovered instead is that the huge amounts of money in adoption and specifically in adoption funding through church again, makes my jaw not just drop, but fall to the floor and go hide in a corner trembling.

But it’s all ok, right? Because we are saving children from the horrible fate of living in apartments with their single mothers and having to go to day care. If they stayed with their mothers then they might be on welfare! They might be sucking our federal tax moneys just because SHE wasn’t responsible enough  to use birth control when she had dirty sex. She might try to get a PELL grant to finished her education or get lower income rent assistance .

Let’s just think about that for a minute.

If she takes out a student loan to get an education for herself, SHE has to pay crazy interest, but through the adoption funds, a perspective adoptive couple pays NOTHING on interest.

It’s Ok for an adoptive couple to say that THEY just can’t afford the adoption fees and ask for donations, but you don’t see an expectant mother doing that to pay for diapers.

She’s a horrible person for not having a good enough job with benefits and insurance to pay for her maternity care, but it’s perfectly fine for the adoption agency to use the same state and federally funded Medicaid.

The adoption funds and agency can get federal tax money in the form of grants in MILLIONS, but she’s sucking off the government teat if she gets low income housing  and subsidized day care.

The Churches can use their tax exempt status to avoid all taxes and help fund adoptions with tax deductions, but  she’s a lousy mother if she gets WIC.

It’s perfectly fine for the adoptive couples to get the Adoption Tax Credit of over 12 thousand dollars while the regular child tax credit is one grand.

She’s the horrible mother for being too young, too uneducated, too fertile, too unsupported, too scared, too trusting, too doubtful? She’s selfish if SHE wants to keep her baby and requires a few years of support and assistance while she does something wild and crazy like.. I don’t know.. stay home and raise her baby? But all this tax exempt, tax deduction, no profit federal grants stuff is just lovely and deserves the blessing of …oh I don’t know… EVERYONE on God’s green earth.

Can someone explain how this is ok to me because I keep on looking at all it and seems like a huge bunch of hypocrisy.

And I HATE hypocrisy.. especially hypocrisy that separates mothers and children.