Published February 26, 2004
No boundaries on adoption credit

With her contagious determination, Sarah Breland of Ballwin orchestrated a bake sale at her elementary school that raised $325. Add that to the $300 Sarah collected at her birthday party, and this 8-year-old has raised more than enough money for a Chinese orphan to receive cleft lip/palate surgery.

Sarah's heart goes out to these orphans because she too was left at an orphanage in China. That was before 1996, when Daniel Breland and Cynthia Berchulc flew to China to make Sarah their daughter.

Adoption is a wonderful event. Domestic and international adoptions give a child with no hope new hope in the form of a loving family.

Since 1988, Missouri has offered resident families the benefit of recouping some of their expenses in the form of a $10,000 adoption tax credit.

When Missouri State Auditor Claire McCaskill recently audited the tax credit, she suggested the intent of the tax credit was to increase domestic adoptions. But the report quotes Division of Family Services officials: "There is nothing in the law that would suggest that credits are to be restricted to Missouri-born children."

Her audit candidly details that most families who adopt domestically already receive a subsidy for nonrecurring expenses; consequently, they often don't qualify for the adoption tax credit. Because the DFS has designated many children adopted internationally to be special needs children (abandoned and of ethnic or minority background), families adopting internationally often do qualify.

In her discussion of the portion of the tax credit claimed by families who adopted internationally, McCaskill limited her concerns to the fiscal costs to the state. Anyone who has been touched by families created through international adoption knows that the program is incredibly successful in ways that go far beyond fiscal concerns.

There are thousands of children just like Sarah who will become Missouri's future teachers, doctors, CEOs, scientists and philanthropists, many of their families assisted by Missouri's adoption tax credit.

We support Missouri families who adopt. All of our children need a home, whether born here or abroad.

Cory Barron is director of public relations for Children's Hope International in St. Louis.