Tag: ‘Elaine Maag’
Reforming the Child Tax Credit for Low-Income Workers
By Elaine Maag :: December 9th, 2015
Congress could significantly help low-income families with children by making current eligibility rules for the Child Tax Credit (CTC) permanent. If lawmakers allow the current threshold to expire as scheduled after 2017, families with children in the lowest income quintile will lose almost $700. Over the past few years, members of Congress from both sides […]
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The IRS Could Improve EITC Compliance by Regulating Tax Preparers
By Elaine Maag :: November 2nd, 2015
Tax preparers play a critical role helping low income working families collect benefits from the Earned Income Tax Credit. Almost 60 percent of families claiming the EITC in 2010 and 2011 did so with the help of a paid preparer. Unfortunately, preparers can make costly mistakes—errors the taxpayer is ultimately responsible for resolving. The IRS […]
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The Case of the Carrot in Need of a Stick: A Tax Credit for Paid Family Leave
By Renu Zaretsky :: October 7th, 2015
My husband and I started our family in 2005. We both worked full-time: He for a large multinational corporation, and I for a small nonprofit. My employer offered 12 weeks of unpaid family leave, even though it was too small to be covered under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Our family was lucky: […]
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Tax Subsidies for Childcare Expenses Target Middle-Income Families, Missing Many Poor Parents
By Elaine Maag :: September 11th, 2015
Congress created two tax benefits to help offset work-related childcare expenses– the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) and the employer-provided childcare exclusion. But recently released data from the Treasury show that neither helps many of those parents who struggle the most to pay for childcare. Over half of childcare benefits will go to […]
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Rewarding Work, Paying by the Mile, a Windfall, and… Tax Magic
By Renu Zaretsky :: May 21st, 2015
Redesign the EITC to help more low-income workers. TPC’s Elaine Maag thinks that’s the way to go. She explains in her new paper: “A worker credit based on individual earnings, and not contingent on having children at home, could provide substantial benefits to all low-income workers, ease administration for the IRS, and encourage work for childless individuals and secondary […]
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A Redesigned Earned Income Tax Credit Could Encourage Work by Childless Adults
By Elaine Maag :: May 20th, 2015
The earned income tax credit (EITC) lifts millions of working families out of poverty, but provides little support to workers without children and some low-wage workers married to other low-wage workers. Congress could fix this flaw by scaling back the EITC and creating a new worker credit that is based on individual earnings and not […]
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Why Do Taxpayers Leave Money on the Table?
By Renu Zaretsky :: May 6th, 2015
My dad taught a teenage me an important lesson when he helped me file my first federal income tax return. I earned the minimum wage at a part-time job, and didn’t have to file. But he explained that I should file, knowing my effort would be rewarded. “You don’t earn enough to owe income taxes,” […]
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Obama Would Simplify and Expand Spending and Tax Subsidies for Child Care
By Elaine Maag :: January 22nd, 2015
President Obama proposed three important changes to the way the federal government helps families with child care costs – increase direct subsidies for low-income families, increase tax credits for middle- and higher income families, and simplify the tax code (and offset some of the cost of the other changes) by eliminating flexible spending accounts for […]
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Will Immigrants Get A Tax Windfall From Refundable Credits?
By Elaine Maag :: December 12th, 2014
In the end-of-the-year congressional scramble, lawmakers scuttled an effort to permanently extend a number of tax breaks—largely because many feared it would open the door to widespread use of refundable tax credits by undocumented immigrants covered by President Obama’s recent executive order. But is their concern justified? Three sets of rules related to residency and […]
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Why the More Generous Child and Earned Income Tax Credits Should Be Made Permanent
By Elaine Maag :: December 3rd, 2014
co-authored with William G. Gale While most of the tax drama these days is focused on the fate of 50+ mostly-business tax breaks that expired nearly a year ago, lawmakers are also debating two provisions that are enormously important to low- and moderate-income households-the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Temporary […]
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