The child poverty rate 57%

expanded CTC under ARPA reduced child poverty in the United States by almost half.11

It has been a challenge to ensure that all families in Puerto Rico that are eligible for 2021 expanded CTC receive the benefit. Puerto Rico’s taxpayers generally do not file federal tax returns and are, therefore, unfamiliar with the process. Furthermore, a significant percentage of the population is not fluent in English, and many do not have the necessary resources to file a federal tax return. Lastly, the changes made to eligibility requirements may have created confusion since, before ARPA, only families that were employed and who had three or more children were eligible.

This report compiles a variety of data that reveal the impact and significance of the CTC in the lives of families, and it presents public policy recommendations for how this credit is applied in Puerto Rico. This report also presents numerical simulations, created using data from the 2019 Puerto Rico Community Survey, and analyses of the results of a CTC Survey in which 400 families participated and of the content of six focus groups in which a total of forty-five people participated. The report also includes observations made at free service centers organized by government and by nonprofits, as well as IRS data on the number of applicants per ZIP code and applications that were referred to the Taxpayer Protection Program (TPP).