Earned Income Tax Credit – California

Free money left on table, By Armand Emamdjomeh, April 29, 2010, New York Times: “What if residents of California – a state reeling from unemployment, a sagging economy and a gaping budget hole – had access to more than $1 billion, but did not use it? What if Alameda County residents had access to $29 million and failed to take it out of the federal treasury? That is exactly what they have been doing, according to a new report, ‘Left on the Table,’ by two professors at California State University, Fresno, which was published by the New America Foundation. An estimated 800,000 California residents will fail to claim a total of $1.2 billion in 2009 earned-income tax credit refunds, the report says. California has the highest rate of unclaimed earned-income tax credits nationally, with nearly a quarter of qualified residents failing to claim the credit when they file their taxes, according to studies by both the Internal Revenue Service and the Government Accountability Office…”