As proposed, the refundable tax credit would be equal to 5% of a household’s income for every child they have younger than seven years old. The credit is capped at a maximum of $1,000 per year per child.
State documents show an expected cost of $450 million in FY 2026 and $440 million in FY 2027, making it one of the most expensive new policy suggestions in DeWine’s budget.
The proposal is part of a bigger budget package handed down by the DeWine Administration to start negotiations on the state’s operating budget in fiscal years 2026 and 2027. Ohio’s process always begins with executive proposal that gets vetted and amended by the Ohio House and Senate, in that order.
Ohio’s budget must also be balanced, which means that newly-proposed programs are often floated in lockstep with new ways to pay for them.
In this case, the DeWine administration suggests paying for the child tax credit by increasing tobacco taxes, namely by nearly doubling the cigarette tax from its current $1.60 per pack to $3.10.
Other tobacco products will also see an increased tax “to provide parity with the average tax on cigarettes,” according to Office of Budget Management Director Kimberly Murnieks.
“The governor’s budget addresses a tax policy area deserving modernization: the tax rates imposed on cigarettes and other tobacco products, including vapor products,” Murnieks told the House Finance Committee Tuesday, noting that cigarette tax rates haven’t increased in Ohio since 2015 and taxes on other tobacco products haven’t increased since 1993.
The proposal would also address a gap in state law that allows vape products with noncombustible nicotine — not tobacco — to escape taxation, Murnieks said.
Those changes would result in an estimated 58.2% increase to the state’s cigarette and tobacco tax revenues year-over-year, raising FY 2025’s $703.5 million in revenue to an estimated $1.1 billion in fiscal years 2026 and 2027, the state estimates.
Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle expressed some trepidation Tuesday with how DeWine intends on planning for child tax credits, even if they agree that the program would benefit Ohio families.
“We all want to take care of children, we all want to support families,” Republican House Finance Chair Brian Stewart, R-Ashville, told reporters. “I think there’s a legitimate question of whether cigarette taxes are the best way to do that, but I think we have a lot of members in our caucus who are really focused on child issues. I think that’s going to be a hot topic.”
House Finance Ranking Member Bride Rose Sweeney, D-Westlake, told reporters that she, too, has reservations on using increased cigarette taxes despite finding the overall idea of a state child tax credit to be “fantastic.”
It’s one of the most direct ways that we have seen to put more money into hardworking Ohioans’ pockets to help children,“ Sweeney said. ”I think it’s a fantastic, good first step and it’s one of the top thing that we’ll be fighting to protect.”
However it’s funded, if Ohio were to adopt a child tax credit, it would follow in the footsteps of 16 other states. The federal child tax credit has lifted an estimated 2 million children out of poverty each year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Stewart expects much of the GOP’s discussions on the budget to center around a series of taxes proposed by DeWine. The Republican party has used the budget for over a decade now to predominantly slash taxes — most recently removing an income tax bracket and ratcheting down commercial activity taxes.
DeWine’s budget looks to tap into other tax markets in their stead, including taxes on cigarette and tobacco sales; sports betting (a tax DeWine suggested raising from 20% to 40% to pay for professional sports facilities and youth sports initiatives); and recreational marijuana sales (which DeWine suggested taxing at 20% instead of the voter-approved 10% to pay for police training, drug enforcement efforts and safe driving initiatives).
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Avery Kreemer can be reached at 614-981-1422, on X, via email, or you can drop him a comment/tip with the survey below.