Tax Credits for the Working Poor

Tax Credits for the Working Poor PDF Author: Michelle Lyon Drumbl
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108244009
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The United States introduced the earned income tax credit (EITC) in 1975, where it remains the most significant earnings-based refundable credit in the Internal Revenue Code. While the United States was the first country to use its domestic revenue system to deliver and administer social welfare benefits to lower-income individuals or families, a number of other countries, including New Zealand and Canada, have experimented with or incorporated similar credits into their tax systems. In this work, Michelle Lyon Drumbl, drawing on her extensive advocacy experience representing low-income taxpayers in EITC audits, analyzes the effectiveness of the EITC in the United States and offers suggestions for how it can be improved. This timely book should be read by anyone interested in how the EITC can be reimagined to better serve the working poor and, more generally, whether the tax system can promote social justice.

Tax Credits for the Working Poor

Tax Credits for the Working Poor PDF Author: Michelle Lyon Drumbl
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108244009
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book

Book Description
The United States introduced the earned income tax credit (EITC) in 1975, where it remains the most significant earnings-based refundable credit in the Internal Revenue Code. While the United States was the first country to use its domestic revenue system to deliver and administer social welfare benefits to lower-income individuals or families, a number of other countries, including New Zealand and Canada, have experimented with or incorporated similar credits into their tax systems. In this work, Michelle Lyon Drumbl, drawing on her extensive advocacy experience representing low-income taxpayers in EITC audits, analyzes the effectiveness of the EITC in the United States and offers suggestions for how it can be improved. This timely book should be read by anyone interested in how the EITC can be reimagined to better serve the working poor and, more generally, whether the tax system can promote social justice.

Tax Credits for the Working Poor

Tax Credits for the Working Poor PDF Author: Michelle Lyon Drumbl
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108415059
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
Analyzes the effectiveness of the earned income tax credit in the United States and offers suggestions for how it can be improved.

It's Not Like I'm Poor

It's Not Like I'm Poor PDF Author: Sarah Halpern-Meekin
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520959221
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
The world of welfare has changed radically. As the poor trade welfare checks for low-wage jobs, their low earnings qualify them for a hefty check come tax time—a combination of the earned income tax credit and other refunds. For many working parents this one check is like hitting the lottery, offering several months’ wages as well as the hope of investing in a better future. Drawing on interviews with 115 families, the authors look at how parents plan to use this annual cash windfall to build up savings, go back to school, and send their kids to college. However, these dreams of upward mobility are often dashed by the difficulty of trying to get by on meager wages. In accessible and engaging prose, It’s Not Like I’m Poor examines the costs and benefits of the new work-based safety net, suggesting ways to augment its strengths so that more of the working poor can realize the promise of a middle-class life.

Helping Working Families

Helping Working Families PDF Author: Saul D. Hoffman
Publisher: W.E. Upjohn Institute
ISBN: 0880992549
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
Gives an overview of the EITC and makes recommendations for changes.

It's Not Like I'm Poor

It's Not Like I'm Poor PDF Author: Sarah Halpern-Meekin
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520275357
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
"This book chronicles the impact of the sweeping transformation of the social safety net that occurred in the mid-1990s. With the dramatic expansion of tax credits--a combination of the Earned Income Tax Credit and other refunds--the economic fortunes of the working poor have been bolstered as never before. 'It's Not Like I'm Poor' looks at how working families plan to use their annual windfall to build up savings, go back to school, and send their kids to college. But dreams of economic mobility are often dashed by the reality of making monthly ends meet on meager wages."--Provided by publisher.

Federal Tax Policies and Low-Income Rural Households

Federal Tax Policies and Low-Income Rural Households PDF Author: Ron Durst
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1437985564
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 27

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Book Description
Analyzes the increasing use of refundable tax credits targeted to low- and moderate-income households in the Federal individual income tax and determines their implications for rural America. The analysis matches a zip code approximation of the 2006 Rural-Urban Commuting Area Codes with IRS Individual Income Tax zip code and related data. These data are then used to examine the impact of the recent expansions to income tax credit programs on affected households. Expansions to both the refundable and non-refundable portions of the Earned Income and Child Tax credits have provided a major source of income support for low-income workers, especially in the South, where the rural poor are concentrated. Illus. A print on demand report.

Taxing the Poor

Taxing the Poor PDF Author: Katherine S. Newman
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520269675
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
"New South? Not really. A compelling demonstration that the South's regressive taxation wreaks so much havoc that the federal government has no choice but to swoop in at great cost and attempt to band-aid all the poverty and dysfunction. The best argument yet for a new federalism that says enough is enough."—David B. Grusky, Stanford University “Taxing the Poor makes extremely important points that are not now—but must be—part of the American discussion of poverty and social policy. The authors make these points with fascinating details on the history of how we got to this place. Bravo to Newman and O’Brien for thoroughly laying out a politcal economy of taxation.”—Robin Einhorn, author of American Taxation, American Slavery

A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty

A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309483980
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 619

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Book Description
The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society, yet America's future is not as secure as it could be because millions of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. A wealth of evidence suggests that a lack of adequate economic resources for families with children compromises these children's ability to grow and achieve adult success, hurting them and the broader society. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty reviews the research on linkages between child poverty and child well-being, and analyzes the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families. This report also provides policy and program recommendations for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.

Making Work Pay

Making Work Pay PDF Author: Bruce D. Meyer
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610443942
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
Since its inception under President Ford in 1975, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has become the largest antipoverty program for the non-elderly in the United States. In 1998, more than nineteen million families received EITC payments, and the program lifted over four million Americans above the poverty line. Despite the rapid growth of the EITC throughout the 1990s, little has been written about how the program works or how it affects low-income families. Making Work Pay provides the first full-scale examination of the EITC, exploring its effects on income distribution, poverty, work, and marriage. Making Work Pay opens with a history of the EITC—its emergence in the 1970s as a pro-work, low-cost antipoverty program and its expansion through the 1980s and 1990s. The central chapters in the volume look at the substantial impact of the EITC on work incentives in recent years and show that the program, in combination with welfare reform and a strong economy, has led to an unprecedented increase in the employment of single mothers. In one study, researchers conclude that the EITC—with its stipulation that one family member be a wage earner—was the most important change in work incentives for single mothers between 1984 and 1996, a period when the employment rate of single mothers rose sharply. Several chapters outline proposals for reforming the program, addressing the concerns by policymakers about the work disincentives that rise as benefits fall with increasing income. Finally, Making Work Pay examines how EITC recipients view the credit and what they do with it once they get it. The contributors find that not only does EITC's lump-sum payment increase consumption but it also allows recipients to make changes in economic status. Many families use the end-of-the-year payment as a form of forced savings, enabling them to save for home improvement, a new car, or other purchases to improve their lives, and providing the extra economic cushion needed to move beyond mere day-to-day survival. Comprehensive in scope, Making Work Pay is an indispensable resource for policymakers, administrators, and researchers seeking to understand the ramifications of the country's largest programs for aiding the working poor.

The Crisis in Tax Administration

The Crisis in Tax Administration PDF Author: Henry Aaron
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780815796565
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
People pay taxes for two reasons. On the positive side, most people recognize, even if grudgingly, that payment of tax is a duty of citizenship. On the negative side, they know that the law requires payment, that evasion is a crime, and that willful failure to pay taxes is punishable by fines or imprisonment. The practical questions for tax administration are how to strengthen each of these motives to comply with the law. How much should be spent on enforcement and how should enforcement be organized to promote these objectives and achieve the best results per dollar spent? Over the last few years, the U.S. Congress has restricted spending on tax administration, forcing the Internal Revenue Service to curtail enforcement activities, at the same time, that the number of individual filers has increased, tax rules have become more complex, and more business have become multinational operations. But if too many cases of tax evasion go undetected and unpunished, those who may have grudgingly paid their taxes may soon find it easier to join the scofflaws. These events in combination have created a genuine crisis in tax administration. The chapters in this volume evaluate the capacity of authorities to enforce the tax laws in a modern, global economy and examine the implications of failing to do so. Specific aspects of tax law, including tax shelters, issues relating to small businesses, tax software, role of tax preparers, and the objectives of tax simplification are examined in detail. The volume also builds a conceptual basis for future scholarship, with regard not only to tax administration, but also to such fundamental questions as whether taxpayers respond mostly to economic incentives or are influenced by their experiences with the filing process and what is the proper framework for evaluating the allocation of resources within the IRS.