Weekly News Round-up: February 22, 2016
Here are some highlights from the past week’s news and upcoming events on family tax credit issues. Remember – you also can track news coverage throughout the week by visiting our website, where you can filter news by a specific credit or state.
- Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced his tax reform plan, which would lower corporate tax rates and create a 10 percent income tax for all earners. Although Cruz said he would keep the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC), he would eliminate all other deductions and credits and the Tax Policy Center found that the changes would slightly increase taxes on the lowest income earners while dramatically cutting the tax burden for those at the top. The plan would cost $8.6 trillion over the first decade (Tax Policy Center, Bloomberg, Politico, Accounting Today, Mother Jones).
- Join TCWF, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) for a Twitter Chat tomorrow, February 23, from 2:00-3:00 p.m. EST to discuss tools and tactics for conducting EITC outreach and helping more low-wage workers become aware of the credit. We will use a new hashtag, #EITCAware, promoted by the IRS to create an online community for sharing EITC outreach materials and ideas. Email Lauren Pescatore for a list of the questions that will be asked during the chat.
- Most members of Congress agree that tax reform is necessary, but Republicans hope to cut taxes across the board while Democrats are seeking cuts that target low- and middle-income families (New York Times).
- Senate Bill 2299, a proposal scheduled for a hearing this week in the Hawaii legislature, would create a state EITC at 10 percent of the federal credit (Washington Times, KITV).
- Saul Harlow from the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy wrote about the importance of the federal EITC to low-income working families and encouraged the West Virginia legislature to create a state-level credit (The Register-Herald).
- Matt Bruenig at Demos outlined how Congress could eliminate marriage penalties from the tax code, particularly those affecting the EITC and CTC (Demos).
- The National Disability Institute (NDI) has partnered with the IRS to make sure that low-income workers with disabilities collect the credits they earned. In 2015, more than 140,000 workers with disabilities collected the EITC, but the demographic still is among those most at risk of overlooking eligibility for the credit (Huffington Post).