States Eye Anti-Poverty Tax Credit to Ease Covid Impact

As Covid-19 ravages the health and finances of working families, communities of color, and immigrants, some states are providing support by expanding the most potent anti-poverty tool in their tax codes—the Earned Income Tax Credit.

In the last month, California and Colorado became the first states in the country to enact laws expanding their EITCs to non-citizens, who aren’t eligible for Social Security numbers but file returns with individual taxpayer identification numbers.

Lawmakers in both states depicted their expansions as efforts to provide equity to immigrant taxpayers who have been disproportionately impacted by the ...