Alameda County Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Campaign

The Earned Income Tax Credit has been shown to significantly reduce poverty and increase employment. As a co-founder of the Alameda County EKS Campaign and the manager for data collection and analysis from 2002-2007, the Council is keenly interested in increasing the 5% uptake rate of the EITC eligible population in Alameda County. By increasing funding and uptake of the EITC, the campaign, along with AC CAN, has an opportunity to greatly increase rates of participation in public benefits that can be linked to the EITC at tax time such as Food Stamps and low-cost health insurance.

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a refundable federal income tax credit for low-income working individuals and families. Census data show that the EITC lifts more children out of poverty than any other single program or category of programs.*

We encourage everyone who qualifies to claim this credit. There are several Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites across Alameda County to help you determine if you qualify and how to file.

Urban Strategies Council has released several reports on the 2008 Alameda County Earn It! Keep It! Save It! Campaign. The reports include:

• Alameda County Campaign Report (Detailed report ~ 63 pages, 2.5MB PDF)
• Alameda County At-A-Glance report (summary report, 2MB PDF)
• Alameda County Data Report (157KB PDF)
• Oakland At-A-Glance Report (1.7MB PDF)
• Oakland Data Report (119KB PDF)

Summary reports and detailed data reports are available for every site in the campaign, to obtain these please contact the site coordinators directly.

Free Tax Preparation for Bay Area residents with incomes under $42,000:

• For more information on the free tax preparation services please visit www.earnitkeepitsaveit.org or click here to download an Alameda County VITA flyer (PDF, 159 KB).

Information about Predatory Tax Preparation:

• To see a map of VITA sites and for-profit tax preparers, click here
• For information on predatory tax preparation services visit the California Reinvestment Coalition

EITC Resources:

• To learn more about the EITC, see this publication by the *Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
• Internal Revenue Service (IRS) EITC Assistant

For more information, please call or email Lisa Forti, lisaf(at)urbanstrategies.org