Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Jaime: Hello your watching Time Warner Cable's Local Edition. This is the Sacramento Report and I'm Jaime Garza.
With me today, Board Member Betty Yee with the Board of Equalization. Good to have you here.
Betty: Thank you so much Jaime.
Jaime: We have something interesting to talk about today and, and this may help you if you're watching,
if your struggling and you're not making enough money because there's tax breaks since we're talking about tax time now
that a lot of people might be able to take advantage of, but maybe don't.
Betty: Absolutely, absolutely and thank you so much for allowing us to highlight and
make the public more aware of what some of these uh... opportunities are.
Jaime: It's called earned income tax credit and I've seen that little box on my tax return
Betty: Yes.
Jaime: before and really have no idea what that's all about. What is that?
Betty: The earned income tax credit is a uh... federal income tax credit and it is designed for low and moderate-income
working families and individuals who uh fall between a certain income levels and
uh have uh dependent children uh... who can avail themselves of the credit.
It is a refundable credit, so uh you do need to file a federal income tax return in order to claim it and
if the uh... credit exceeds the amount of taxes that you owe you will actually get a check in the mail.
Jaime: So let's set the stage here, who qualifies what, what's that, that range of sa, of salary?
Betty: Uh... the s, the uh... income has to be from uh, uh it's called earned income because it has to be from wages from work and...
Jaime: Not unemployed, let's make that very clear.
Betty: Exactly, exactly, so the minimum uh, uh income uh earned by uh an individual is
thirteen thousand four hundred and sixty dollars a little bit more for a married couple
uh, but all the way up to uh forty three thousand three hundred fifty two dollars,
depending on the number of dependent children you have
and depending on the income and the family size that determines the amount of the credit.
Which could range from four hundred fifty seven dollars for uh someone with no qualifying children,
all the way up to five thousand six hundred sixty six dollars for uh, uh a person with three or more qualifying children.
Jaime: That's money that can go a long way
Betty: Absolutely.
Jaime: for these families, but there's, there's a surplus of money for these families it was over a billion dollars.
Betty: Yes, yes, uh every year uh the sad and unfortunate part of this is that not many people know about this
uh earned income tax credit.
In California alone we believe that there are about seven hundred thousand eligible Californians who do not claim the credit,
leaving about one point five billion dollars on the table unclaimed.
Jaime: Why do you think they're... that money's unclaimed?
Is it, you think people are not filing their taxes because they think they don't earn enough
or is it because people just don't know what that means?
I think it's a combination of both and so uh for many of these families they probably do their own taxes.
They're not going to a tax preparer and uh... filing taxes, which sometimes can be very very complex.
Uh they just overlook uh the availability of this credit that uh...
it is uh something that does get highlighted in the federal income tax materials and really should be paid attention to.
Jaime: So what do we do at this point? Let's say I'm low-income.
I have a family.
Betty: Yes.
Jaime: I make the, I make the threshold.
Betty: Yes.
Jaime: What do I do?
Betty: What I would encourage families to do is to go to a volunteer income tax assistance center closest to them.
Uh they can find out where those are on the uhm... uh federal franchise tax board website.
Uh, but these are uh assistance centers where trained volunteers can help them identify their eligibility for their earned income tax credit
and actually could help them even uhm... uhm... walk through how to fill out the uh... the return in order to claim it.
Uh... also on the I_R_S_ website there is a uh a tool called uh... E_I_T_C_ earned income tax credit assist
they may get on the website to determine their eligibility and if they are eligible
now they know then that they have to file an income tax return.
Jaime: Yeah, I don't think a lot of people know that there is free help out there and
Betty: Yes.
Jaime: and I know that, I know that a lot of our, our law makers have gone through their websites to say,
look if you need some help in try to figure out the taxes call me
Betty: Yes.
Jaime: or check with my people
Betty: Yes.
Jaime: who, who will lead you there.
Betty: Absolutely, there is a lot of assistance out there and these are trained qualified volunteers
who are uh ready and uh willing to assist.
Jaime: In the last thirty seconds that we have here.
What is the one piece of advice that you can give somebody filing their taxes to take advantage?
Betty: Uh what I would say is uhm look at this uh fairly soon look at uh filing your taxes early.
Uh... the credit is available if you qualify, so there's no time limit, but uh April fifteenth
is generally the time-frame to file your income taxes and
uh... more importantly ah identify where your resources are to help you be able to get that return in.
Jaime: Well let's hope it ah helps, let's hope because that's very good, that's very good money and could help a lot of people.
Board Member Betty Yee as always good to have you here from the Board of Equalization
and thank you at home for watching Time Warner Cable's, Local Edition
and don't forget you can watch this interview and other interviews by going to my government on demand.
Commercial for another show.