Today is the Earned Income Tax CreditA tax credit is a provision that reduces a taxpayer’s final tax bill, dollar-for-dollar. A tax credit differs from deductions and exemptions, which reduce taxable income, rather than the taxpayer’s tax bill directly. Awareness Day. For an overview of the EITC, please refer to this post.
According to the IRS, 19.2 percent of the 146 million income taxA tax is a mandatory payment or charge collected by local, state, and national governments from individuals or businesses to cover the costs of general government services, goods, and activities. filers in 2011 claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit across the United States. However, looking at each state, the proportion of filers in each state that claim the EITC varies based on region and income of the state. Lower-income, southern states had a higher proportion of EITC recipients than other states. Mississippi (32.8 percent), Louisiana (27.3 percent), Alabama (26.3 percent), and Arkansas (25.8 percent) had the highest proportion of EITC recipients as a percent of tax filers in those states. On the flip side, higher-income states had the lowest proportions. New Hampshire (12.2 percent), Connecticut (12.5 percent), Massachusetts (12.5 percent), and North Dakota (13.1 percent) had the lowest proportion of EITC recipients as a percent of each state’s income tax filers.
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