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Sen. Sandra Hardy presents S.51 unpaid-caregiver tax credit; committee hears fiscal estimate
Summary
Senator Sandra Hardy told the Ways & Means Committee that S.51 would create a refundable tax credit up to $1,000, prorated by month, for Vermonters who provide at least 20 hours per week of unpaid care to a qualifying relative. The Joint Fiscal Office estimated a FY2026 cost of about $6 million with several caveats about uptake and measurement.
Senator Sandra Hardy, sponsor of S.51, told the House Ways & Means Committee on April 8 that the bill would create a refundable unpaid-caregiver tax credit worth $1,000 for people who provide at least 20 hours of uncompensated care per week to a qualifying relative.
Hardy said the credit would be prorated by month and modeled on the child tax credit’s scaling and phaseout. "It's not that at all [paid family leave], but it is a way to get at it a little bit through a tax credit…to help people at least make ends meet a little bit, who are doing unpaid care and not getting compensated for it," she said.
The bill’s eligibility criteria described in committee include: the care recipient must be related by blood, civil marriage or adoption; must have a medical diagnosis requiring assistance with activities of daily living; must be receiving care at home (not in a nursing or assisted‑living facility); and the caregiver must provide at least 20 hours of unpaid care per week. The bill would require a form signed by a licensed medical professional attesting that the care recipient needs assistance with activities of daily living amounting to at least 20 hours per week; taxpayers would keep that form for three years to align with audit periods at the Department of Taxes.
Patrick Titterton of the Joint Fiscal Office presented the fiscal estimate and noted uncertainty in the modeling. "The dollar figure we put on this for fiscal year 26 would be $6,000,000," he said, and added that the estimate rests on triangulating several surveys and assumptions about who would claim the credit and how reliably hours of unpaid care will be self‑reported. JFO staff flagged three sources of uncertainty: (1) the population described in the bill is not directly tracked in a single federal or state dataset; (2) the credit requires monthly/prorated self‑attestation of 20 hours per week, which could affect uptake; and (3) respondents may round reported hours when a financial incentive exists.
The bill is refundable, so claimants whose credit exceeds their tax liability would receive a refund. The credit phases out beginning at adjusted gross income of $125,000 and phases out over the next $50,000 of AGI. Hardy said the bill originally proposed a $2,500 credit and was reduced to $1,000 in the introduced version to limit budget impact.
Committee members raised multiple implementation questions: how the Department of Taxes would verify uncompensated care; the interaction between this credit and existing programs that pay family caregivers (for example, a Medicaid personal‑care payroll option discussed in committee); whether children without a medical diagnosis would be excluded; and cross‑border situations (care provided to a person who does not reside full time in Vermont).
Hardy and committee staff invited additional testimony from the Department of Aging and Independent Living and caregiver‑advocacy organizations to better assess likely uptake and the credit’s practical impact on households. The committee did not take a vote on S.51 during this meeting.
The committee indicated it will consider S.51 further before crossover and requested additional data and testimony on program overlap, verification workload for the Department of Taxes, and the likely fiscal trajectory of the estimate.
