Record Number Of Riverside County Families Already Claimed Their CA Earned Income Tax Credit

Low-Income Workers Can Continue To Claim Cash Back Refunds Year ‘Round

Riverside County News

Riverside, CA:  A record number of hard working individuals and families in Riverside County have already claimed their CA Earned Income Tax Credit (Cal EITC), an effective anti-poverty program in the state with the highest poverty rate in the nation.  These numbers are expected to rise given the credit can be claimed after tax day through the end of the year. 

“Collaborative outreach from advocates like CalEITC4Me and governmental agencies has resulted in record numbers of Californians benefitting from the Earned Income Tax Credit,” said Senator Richard D. Roth. “That’s a win for Inland Southern California and a win for our state. More money in the pockets of working families means more money is going back to local businesses.”

CalEITC4Me, the statewide outreach and education campaign, has worked to expand the cash back credit so that additional families including self-employed workers are newly eligible this year.  Those outreach efforts are proving successful:  According to data released by the Franchise Tax Board, 1.2 million Californians have already claimed their earnings, including 68,111 in Riverside County far surpassing the total number of claims in 2017 of 17,046 individuals.  That 299% increase means that $17,993,795 has already been put back into the pockets of Riverside County working families and individuals.

“Record numbers of Californians are benefitting from the Earned Income Tax Credit thanks to the outreach efforts of government agencies and advocates like CalEITC4Me,” said Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood).

“The Earned Income Tax Credit, a cash-back program for hard-working people, has long been established as one of the strongest policy tools we have to fight poverty and make work pay better,” said Josh Fryday, President of CalEITC4ME.org.  ‘Even though Tax Day is behind us, our work to fight poverty is just beginning. Most don’t realize that hard-working Californians can claim the Earned Income Tax Credit they’ve earned at anytime throughout the year.”

CalEITC4Me has enrolled hundreds of thousands of hard-working individuals through its statewide ‘surround-sound’ outreach campaign.  The campaign entails an innovative texting program that has already reached over 1 million this year,  free tax prep resources and events, digital and print materials in Vietnamese, Mandarin, Spanish and English, a digital calculator to determine eligibility, as well as effective coordination with many partners.  Since 2016, CalEITC4Me has helped over a million families claim over $4 billion in state and Federal EITC.