Tax Credits for the Working Poor
A Call for Reform

Analyzes the effectiveness of the earned income tax credit in the United States and offers suggestions for how it can be improved.

Michelle Lyon Drumbl (Author)

9781108400206, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 September 2019

232 pages, 1 table
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.35 kg

'Drumbl makes an important contribution to the EITC literature. She clearly summarizes much of the literature from diverse disciplines on the function and effectiveness of the EITC. She uses that literature to probe the problems of the EITC and to make measured and sensible proposals for reform. In doing so, she also makes important original contributions to the comparative study of government assistance programs, drawing on the experiences of two of our closest allies, Canada and New Zealand, to support her reform proposals. As such, her work should be read by policymakers and scholars from a political and ideological viewpoints for its important discussions on the problems with the EITC and sensible proposals to address those problems. If politicians institute one or more of its suggested reforms, some financial relief will come to those taxpayers who need it most.' Jonathan D. Grossberg, Journal of the American Taxation Association

The United States introduced the earned income tax credit (EITC) in 1975, where it remains the most significant earnings-based refundable credit in the Internal Revenue Code. While the United States was the first country to use its domestic revenue system to deliver and administer social welfare benefits to lower-income individuals or families, a number of other countries, including New Zealand and Canada, have experimented with or incorporated similar credits into their tax systems. In this work, Michelle Lyon Drumbl, drawing on her extensive advocacy experience representing low-income taxpayers in EITC audits, analyzes the effectiveness of the EITC in the United States and offers suggestions for how it can be improved. This timely book should be read by anyone interested in how the EITC can be reimagined to better serve the working poor and, more generally, whether the tax system can promote social justice.

Preface and acknowledgments
List of abbreviations
Introduction: rethinking the earned income tax credit
1. A history of the EITC: how it began and what it has become
2. Why the United States uses lump-sum delivery
3. How inexpensive administration creates expensive challenges
4. Importing ideas: case studies in design and administrability
5. Reimagining the credit: why and how to restructure the EITC
6. Making a case for year-round EITC delivery
7. Protecting the anti-poverty element
8. Beyond EITC delivery and administration: how the United States addresses poverty
Index.

Subject Areas: Legal skills & practice [LAS], Taxation [KFFD1], Welfare economics [KCR], Economics [KC], Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]