Child Tax Credit maximum, TY2027

The Child Tax Credit maximum is a policy setting with direct consequences for tax liability, refundable credits, child poverty, and PolicyEngine baseline assumptions. This target resolves on 2026-10-31 under a first-print rule, with an expected ~4 months lag. The same series can also spawn threshold, +12 months, poverty impact questions.

The agent centers on $2,300 because TY2026 guidance places the amount near $2,200 and inflation indexing plus rounding can move the TY2027 setting above $2,250. The interval leaves room for no upward rounding or a larger statutory change.

The resolver is the first official IRS dollar value for the maximum Child Tax Credit per qualifying child for tax year 2027. This is the maximum under IRC section 24(a) as modified by section 24(h)(2), not the refundable portion under section 24(h)(5), a phase-in rate, a phaseout threshold, or a monthly equivalent.

Base-rate/reference class: recent official IRS annual inflation adjustments for this exact parameter show the base moving from the old $2,000 regime to $2,200 under Public Law 119-21, with TY2026 still $2,200 because the first year of chained-CPI growth over the 2024 base did not produce a full $100 rounded-down increase. The outside-view prior is therefore sticky at $2,200 or a one-notch move to $2,300, not a continuous estimate.

Simple discrete nowcast prior: using the May 2026 chained-CPI momentum and the remaining June-August window, I assign roughly 25 percent to a $2,200 IRS print, 60 percent to $2,300, 12 percent to $2,400, and 3 percent to policy or inflation outcomes outside that range. I do not use a richer time-series model because the rounded statutory threshold dominates the forecast and only three monthly CPI inputs remain before the formula is fixed.

Mechanism decomposition: level is the statutory $2,200 base; momentum comes from elevated 2026 inflation, especially the May 2026 C-CPI-U 4.0 percent 12-month increase; the one-off component is energy-price pressure that may fade before August; policy risk is small because Public Law 119-21 already made the credit permanent, but Congress could still amend section 24 before the IRS print.

Counter-consideration: the no-change $2,200 case remains plausible if June-August chained CPI is soft enough, if preliminary C-CPI-U revisions lower the 12-month average, or if IRS applies a technical convention that leaves the cumulative adjustment just below the $100 threshold. An upside outside the interval would require a legislative expansion or unusually high inflation producing a $2,500-or-higher official value; a downside outside the interval would require repeal or a statutory cut.

Threshold math: under section 24(i)(2)-(3), the TY2027 increase is floor_to_$100(2200 * COLA_2027_with_2024_base). The first $100 increment requires COLA >= 100 / 2200 = 4.545 percent. TY2026 remained $2,200, implying the one-year 2025-over-2024 COLA generated less than $100 after rounding. By May 2026, BLS reported C-CPI-U +4.0 percent over 12 months and CPI-U +4.2 percent, so the two-year 2026-over-2024 window is likely above 4.545 percent by August 2026. The 80 percent interval of $2,200 to $2,400 corresponds to the central 97 percent of the discrete prior after excluding only the low-probability legislative-cut and $2,500-plus inflation-tail cases; the point is the modal rounded amount, $2,300.

Review disposition: accepted the blocking critique that the BLS September 11, 2026 CPI date fixes an input but is not the IRS resolving publication; changed the resolver to the expected IRS TY2027 first-print release with a stable IRS placeholder URL, clarified the refundable-portion exclusion, added a discrete nowcast prior, and tied the interval to probability mass over rounded statutory outcomes.