Ohio’s next child tax credit, if lawmakers approve one, could look quite different from the proposal Gov. Mike DeWine backed in 2025. Governor-elect Amy Acton’s plan would cover children through age 18, but important rules—including whether her child credit would be refundable—remain unspecified. The differences matter: a credit can reduce a tax bill, provide cash beyond taxes owed, or do both, depending on its design.
Acton’s proposal reaches older children, but its rules are incomplete
Acton’s campaign proposes an annual credit of $1,000 for each child ages 0 through 6 and $500 for each child ages 7 through 18. It says families earning up to $85,000 would qualify and estimates the credit could reach families with more than 1.4 million children, Cleveland.com reported. Those are campaign estimates; the published plan does not spell out complete eligibility or phaseout rules, or say whether the child credit would be refundable.
Acton has also proposed expanding Ohio’s earned-income tax credit and making it refundable, according to The Columbus Dispatch. Ohio’s existing credit is 30% of the federal credit and is nonrefundable: it can reduce state income taxes owed to zero but does not pay a family the excess. Acton has not detailed how her proposed changes would work. Her campaign says a married couple with two children earning $60,000 could receive an additional $1,778 under the overall Working Families Tax Cut; that is a campaign estimate, not an enacted benefit.
Other states show more than one way to target a credit
State examples illustrate design choices, not what Ohio’s plan would cost or deliver. For tax year 2024, Illinois linked its child credit to its earned-income credit: taxpayers receiving the Illinois EITC with a dependent child under 12 could receive 20% of their EITC amount, according to the Illinois Department of Revenue. California offers another earned-income-linked model: its Young Child Tax Credit, created in 2019, is additional support for CalEITC recipients with a child age 5 or younger, the California Franchise Tax Board says. Both differ from Acton’s proposed age-banded amounts.
Administrative results in Minnesota provide a separate point of comparison. More than 223,000 returns claimed the state’s new child tax credit for tax year 2023, with an average total credit of $1,242; the Minnesota Department of Revenue reported that it put more than $562 million into families’ budgets. Those figures describe Minnesota’s program, not a forecast for Ohio.
DeWine’s earlier proposal shows the budget challenge
DeWine’s 2025 proposal was narrower by age: it offered qualifying families a refundable credit of up to $1,000 annually for each child age 6 or younger. The Legislative Service Commission estimated a revenue reduction of $450 million in fiscal 2026 and $440 million in fiscal 2027, Cleveland.com reported. DeWine paired it with proposed increases to cigarette, other tobacco-product and vapor-product taxes, but those increases were not specifically earmarked to fund the credit.
The Republican-controlled House and Senate left out both DeWine’s credit and the tobacco-tax increases from their budget versions; neither appeared in the final law he signed on June 30, 2025. The legislative record establishes the omission, not lawmakers’ reason for it. Earlier estimates for Acton’s proposals do not settle the cost of her current plan: a January 2025 estimate concerned an earlier version of her child credit, while a later analysis of her tax-credit proposals together was not an estimate of the current version.
Acton, who defeated Republican Vivek Ramaswamy in the November 3 governor’s race, will need the General Assembly to change state tax law; she cannot establish the credits by executive order. Republicans are still expected to control both chambers, although Democrats appear to have broken the House GOP’s veto-proof majority and some close races could face recounts. DeWine’s experience shows that a governor’s backing alone does not enact a credit. It does not determine whether lawmakers will support Acton’s plan.
