Forestour

How  the  earned  income  tax  credit  works.

 The next time you find yourself bemoaning your tax burden or the size of your refund (or lack thereof), ask yourself one question: Do I qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit?

 If question marks just appeared in a bubble over your head, we're here to help. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a tax credit available to working Americans with low incomes. It is specifically designed to keep individuals and families out of poverty while encouraging people to work. And it works! In 2010, the EITC was credited with keeping 6.6 million Americans above the poverty line. That's more than any other anti-poverty program, including food stamps, housing subsidies,WIC, free school lunch or energy assistance. In 2010, 26.8 million Americans received an EITC, for a total of $59.5 billion.

 To qualify for the EITC, you have to earn very little money relative to the size of your family. The maximum you can report in earned income is $49,078 if married and filing jointly or $43,998 if filing individually -- and that's only if you have three or more children. The income limit decreases if you have fewer children or no children to support. If you are single with no children, you have to make less than $13,360 to receive the EITC.

 The EITC was created with the Tax Reduction Act of 1975. From the beginning, it was designed to benefit low-income families with children by offering a fully refundable tax credit. What does it mean to be fully refundable? Like the Child Tax Credit, the EITC can reduce a taxpayer's tax liability to below zero, resulting in a refund. And if you owe no income tax at all -- which is true for many low-earning households -- then you get to keep the full amount of the EITC. The EITC was written into the tax code specifically to offset payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare) that eat away at wages.

 Unlike other "welfare" programs, the EITC encourages work by requiring some level of earned income. In fact, the amount of the credit increases with income to a certain level, after which it begins to decrease or "phase out." For example, if you have one or more children, you'll receive the maximum tax credit if you earn a little over $15,000 but not more than $20,000 a year. For every dollar you earn over $20,000, your tax credit will decrease.