News Round Up: December 3, 2018

Here are some highlights from the past week’s news and upcoming events on family tax credit issues:

Top story: A new interactive data tool from the Tax Policy Center shows how the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) benefits communities throughout the U.S. Users can filter EITC data by state, ZIP code, city, county, metropolitan area, state legislative district and congressional district. (Tax Policy Center)

  • The Economist highlighted new research showing that the EITC costs so little to administer, “it almost pays for itself.” (The Economist)
  • Elaine Maag, senior research associate at the Tax Policy Center, explored how restricting Child Tax Credit (CTC) refundability as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act actually reduced the value of another tax credit, the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC), for many lower-income families. (Tax Policy Center)
  • S. Representative Morgan Griffith (R-Va) announced plans to reintroduce legislation to extend federal CTC eligibility for parents of stillborn babies. (Augusta Free-Press)
  • The Get It Back Campaign and the CASH Campaign of Maryland released a new tax filing guide for Uber and Lyft drivers, called the “Roadmap to Rideshare Taxes.”
  • Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families (AACF) began releasing a series of videos on how enacting a state-level EITC could help working families make ends meet.
  • Policy Matters Ohio released a report on the need to make the state’s EITC fully refundable to help children and families succeed. (Policy Matters Ohio)
  • The Commonwealth Institute highlighted how making Virginia’s EITC refundable would help boost opportunities for communities of color. (The Half Sheet)
  • We blogged about a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) that assesses the fairness of state and local tax codes in all 50 states and recommends policy solutions for making tax systems more equitable, such as enacting and expanding state-level EITCs. (TCWF)