Maryland taxpayers who could be eligible for the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit have been getting text messages from state officials to make sure those who qualify for the benefit claim it on their taxes.
One concern, said Colin Murphy, deputy chief of staff at the Maryland Department of Human Services, is whether taxpayers will dismiss it as a scam.
Murphy said state officials took several steps to make sure the text message isn’t deleted as a phishing attempt.
“First, we didn’t ask for any personal information in the text itself, and we referred people to a ‘.gov,’ a government website, to learn more,” Murphy said. “Second, we put a separate section up on our website explaining this, so that if somebody Googles it, they can find out that it’s a legitimate thing.”
He said the message is being posted on multiple platforms, “and we’re hoping that as people see it in more places, they become familiar with it.”
Murphy said as many as 500,000 Marylanders could be eligible for the credit, which he said “can reduce your tax bill by up to $4,000 or it can increase your refund by that amount.”
There are income limits: At the lower end of the scale, taxpayers making between $19,104 and $26,214 a year can qualify, depending on whether they file as single, head of household, married filing separately, widowed or married and filing jointly.
For families with three or more children, the income limits range from $61,555 to $68,675.
“This can apply definitely to families with children, and then also to somebody who might have worked part time, maybe only earned about $10,000 last year, would still be eligible for this,” he said.
Murphy said making sure that taxpayers get the benefits they are entitled to is more important than ever, and that the tax credit represents “real money” at a time when household budgets are tight.
Last year, Murphy said, “Almost 15% of the people who are eligible did not claim it. And so that’s almost 70,000 people that did not claim the Earned Income Tax Credit.”
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