Tax Credits for the Working Poor: A Call for Reform
Cambridge University Press, 9/19/2019
EAN 9781108415057, ISBN10: 1108415059
Hardcover, 232 pages, 23.7 x 16.4 x 1.7 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
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.