Tag: Save EITC

Op-ed, infographic document importance of Earned Income Tax Credit

March 15, 2013 at 8:40 amCategory:Uncategorized

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As part of the generalized War on the Poor that they’ve been waging in recent weeks, state lawmakers have taken aim on the state Earned Income Tax Credit — an efficient program that provides workers earning low wages with a credit to offset their total state and local tax contributions.

Two new items documenting the folly of this action are worth a look this morning:

#1 is this op-ed in today’s edition of Raleigh’s News & Observer by Budget and Tax Center Director, Alexandra Sirota. As she notes:

“The EITC is an effective tool for keeping children and their families out of poverty, and it helps families keep working and on the path to the middle class.”

#2 is this new interactive infographic on the main Policy Watch site. It allows you to use your computer mouse to hover over any county in the state and get a glimpse of the credit’s impact.

Let’s hope state policymakers start paying attention to these compelling arguments.

Prosperity Watch: The Earned Income Tax Credit Benefits Working Families Across North Carolina

February 27, 2013 at 1:32 pmCategory:NC Budget and Tax Center

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As tax filing season rolls around, many North Carolina families and communities across the state will benefit from the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), an important tax break designed to reward work and offset federal payroll and income taxes paid by low-wage workers.  But as the latest issue of Prosperity Watch explains, some communities rely on this credit more than other communities, since some are more economically distressed than others.  As a result, there are significant differences across the state’s counties in terms of the percentage of tax filers in each county that claim this credit, and many of the counties with the highest percentage of filers are clustered in one of the state’s poorest regions. See Prosperity Watch for details.