Topic: EITC

Bill Watch: Quieter year expected on the tax front

Some of the fiercest battles of recent legislative sessions have centered on tax policy as lawmakers debated competing tax proposals to limit funding cuts and provide teachers a raise. This year, thanks to a strong economy and recent tax increases, the state's budget outlook is greatly improved. Yet even if the stakes are lower, lawmakers still filed hundreds of bills this session that would revise Oklahoma's tax system. [More...]

New economic rankings show Oklahoma falling further behind

There are quite a few reasons to be optimistic about Oklahoma this year. Unemployment is low and the state expects to have a budget surplus this year, the first in quite some time. But despite this good news, too many Oklahomans are still struggling to make ends meet and build a better future for themselves and their families. For the third straight year, Oklahoma has dropped in the Prosperity Now Scorecard rankings. This year, we rank 43rd in the financial health and overall well-being of our residents - that's down from 34th in 2016. [More...]

2019 Priority: Strengthen Working Family Tax Credits

Download this fact sheet as a printable pdf here. Read about the rest of OK Policy’s 2019 Legislative Policy Priorities here. In a tax code that provides multiple breaks for high-income individuals and businesses, Oklahoma offers just three tax credits… Read more [More...]

Step Up coalition’s new tax credit is a poor substitute for restoring the EITC

Just a few weeks ago, the Step Up Oklahoma coalition announced their plan for a variety of tax increases and reforms to resolve some of Oklahoma’s long-standing budget problems. Since then, the proposal has attracted support from a broad range… Read more [More...]

The EITC has been an unfortunate victim of Oklahoma’s budget gridlock

In 2016, Oklahoma lawmakers were struggling to pass a state budget amid a massive revenue shortfall. Sound familiar? One of the measures taken by lawmakers in that year to fill their shortfall was making Oklahoma’s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)… Read more [More...]

What happened to my refund?

It’s tax time again, and if you are one of the more than 300,000 Oklahoma households that claim the state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) you may have noticed that your tax refund is lower than it was last year,… Read more [More...]

New bill would devastate a key tax credit for Oklahoma working families

Yesterday, a letter signed by more than 150 Oklahoma clergy was delivered to lawmakers and Governor Fallin, urging them not to slash key tax credits for working families to fix the state’s revenue problems. They were joined by numerous non-profit… Read more [More...]

To help kids, help parents

About 168,000 children age 5 and younger in Oklahoma live in low-income families (making less than 200 percent of the poverty threshold, or $47,000 for a family of four). Like most families in America, the parents of these young children … Read more [More...]

Guest Post (Indivar Dutta-Gupta): EITC Even Better for Children than We Thought

Indivar Dutta-Gupta is a Policy Advisor for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). This post originally appeared on the Off The Charts blog. We previously showed that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for low-income workers lifts more… Read more [More...]

The conservative anti-poverty program

In all of the major income tax proposals this year (including the plan announced yesterday by Senate Republicans), the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has been targeted for elimination. That’s strange, because lawmakers have made no clear argument for why we should lose this… Read more [More...]