Tax Credits for Working Families

Weekly Round-Up: May 24, 2013

May 24th, 2013

Here are some highlights from this week’s news on family tax credit issues. Remember – you can also track news coverage throughout the week by visiting our RSS feed, where you can filter news by a specific credit and/or state.

• The Minnesota governor, House and Senate have agreed to an omnibus tax bill, House File 677, that boasts $135 million in additional funding for property tax circuit breakers in the state, including a $15.5 million increase for Minnesota’s Renters’ Credit that partially restores cuts made two years ago, and a $120 million increase in the Homeowners’ Property Tax Refund. (Minnesota Budget Bites)

• On Thursday, the Montgomery County Council in Maryland approved a budget for FY 2014 that increases the Working Families Income Supplement from 75.5 percent to 85 percent of Maryland’s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). (Montgomery County Council)

• Wisconsin‘s Joint Finance Committee approved an omnibus motion late Tuesday that would only shift $19 million of funding from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to replace funding for the state’s EITC, compared to the governor’s budget, which would have taken $27 million from TANF to fund the credit. This means that more of the state EITC will be paid through general revenue funds than the governor had proposed, although less than in prior years. (Wisconsin Budget Project)

• On Thursday, Oregon‘s Joint Committee on Tax Credits heard statements from recipients of the state’s EITC that emphasized how the credit has helped them not only to cover basic living expenses but also to save for emergencies. Oregon’s EITC is currently scheduled to sunset at the end of this year, but legislators are reviewing House and Senate bills to extend the credit for another six years, as well as a proposal from the governor to raise the state EITC from 6 percent to 8 percent of the federal credit. (The Statesman Journal 1,2)

• Maine Gov. Paul LePage said Monday that his long-term goal is to eliminate the state’s income tax, which would inevitably end Maine’s EITC, currently set at 5 percent of the federal credit. However, he doesn’t support a bipartisan proposal to reduce the state income tax by half because it is not revenue neutral, raising more through other taxes than would be lost from the income tax. (The Kennebec Journal)

• Advocates in Michigan this week called on the Legislature to use some of the state’s unexpected revenue to partially restore   the state’s EITC, which was cut from 20 percent to just 6 percent of the federal credit in 2011. (MLive.com 1, 2, The Detroit Free Press, The Oakland Press, The Michigan League for Public Policy)

• The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Erica Williams made the case for North Carolina to reinstate its EITC in order to help working families support themselves. (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

• We blogged Monday about a recent Gallup survey showing that most Americans believe a family of four needs at least $60,000 a year to “get by,” indicating that they understand the importance of the EITC for helping families who earn less than this make ends meet. On Wednesday, we wrote about a proposal for a federal tax credit for renters being included in a Senate Finance Committee paper issued last week. (Tax Credits for Working Families 1,2)

• A new scorecard from Wider Opportunities for Women looks at how states are leveraging 85 different policies such as the EITC and state child and dependent care credits to assist low-income working families, and grades each of the 50 states on “their potential to improve the economic security of workers, families, and retirees.” No state in the country received an A, or even a B grade. (ThinkProgress)

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