The Boston Earned Income Tax Credit Campaign

By Mimi Turchinetz, Esq., Campaign Director, Boston EITC Campaign

Another tax campaign?  What are these campaigns, anyway?  Some are organizations that do taxes, some are cities that market community based tax programs, some are coalitions. Who and what is the Boston Campaign?  We are a coalition that seeks to maximize the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-to-moderate income households in Boston and in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We provide asset building to our communities, develop new and innovative programs, provide advocacy and organizing and do it all in through an inclusive strategy that incorporates disability as a priority constituency. All our services are offered in seven languages: Spanish, Somali, Haitian Creole, Cape Verdean Creole, Chinese, Vietnamese and Portuguese.

Sound comprehensive? We try to be all inclusive while meeting our taxpayers and participants where they are at.  “It ain’t easy,” as the saying goes, but it sure is important, fun, meaningful and effective, so all around it feels like important and relevant work.

So who are we?  The Boston EITC Campaign is in its tenth tax season of providing hard working Boston taxpayers free tax preparation and asset building opportunities.  We are a coalition of public and private partners and stakeholders who have come together to maximize the power of many to assist and empower our constituents.  We are driven by a desire to fight poverty and seek economic justice through programmatic activity and policy change.  We have many partners who play numerous roles.

A brief glimpse of the key partners will provide a window into our coalition.  Key leaders come from the following organizations: The Mayor’s Office of Jobs and Community Services - that would be my employer, and the lead partner in the coalition; Dotwell, a health collaboration of two premier Boston community health centers - the Civic Health Institute is our lead entity representing Dotwell and was a founder and has been a driver of the asset building work for a decade; and Action for Boston Community Development, Boston’s community action program and the largest and most seasoned anti-poverty organization in Massachusetts and the region is also a founding partner. The Federal Reserve Bank has been a stalwart partner - they have also been at the table for a decade.  Then there are numerous additional partners and funders - Jewish Vocational Services, 1199 SEIU, Hispanic Office of Planning and Evaluation, Work Inc., UMass Boston, Suffolk University, Boston University, the Black Ministerial Alliance, Goodwill (this list can go on and on.) We have retained our partners through a democratic coalition process, developing joint strategies, raising money collaboratively, joining together to do taxes and provide asset building-working collectively and with consensus decision-making to serve the community and produce.  Maybe the federal government should learn a lesson from our model.

What have we done in ten years?  We have been providing volunteer tax preparation in the community and have prepared more that 70,000 returns and refunded more that $100 million to Boston taxpayers.  Of that dollar figure, more than $33 million of those refunds have been EITC dollars.  2000 volunteers have joined us and helped prepare taxes and provided asset building services.  Buy using the Coalition’s community tax sites, Boston households have saved on average $150 each and a total of $150 million has stayed in the neighborhoods as an economic engine as opposed to going into the pockets of paid and predatory commercial tax preparers. Those are impressive results, but that is only part of the story.

Early on, we knew that the tax sites could be an entry point for our low low-to-moderate income individual taxpayers to access financial services tailored to their needs.  As we all know, it has been a tough time for low-to-moderate income folks in our communities all over the country.  Poor people are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer.  Through a national sharing process, community tax preparation efforts joined with other national leaders and thinkers in the asset building and disability fields and started to create strategies and activities to pursue asset building at and in conjunction with tax sites and the tax season.

This has also not been easy.  As anyone can imagine, to gain facile in tax preparation with a workforce of primarily volunteers and an annually changing tax code is difficult enough. Add to this an overlay of credit advising at the tax sites, marketing bank accounts with banking partners, providing access to savings bonds and other tailored financial products, all at the same time working to determine impact, evaluate effectiveness, continue to do taxes and all with a skeletal staff.  This is what the Boston Coalition does, as do many tax campaigns and programs across the county.

There has been a national effort, and as a field we have developed dramatically over the past ten years.  Highlighting my two favorite national organizations can provide insight into why we have been effective, and they deserve recognition for their remarkable work, their impressive results for our taxpayers and constituents and their technical assistance and friendship.  These two key national organizations are the National Disability Institute (NDI), and the National Community Tax Coalition (NCTC).

These two organizations have been leaders in creating, developing and building out this work.  And they represent two separate and distinct people’s movements, albeit very different, that are weaving together a new story for economic justice that is inclusive and innovative.  Who are they, and why are they fundamental as the glue for the local campaigns and the national voice for our constituents?  I do not intend to provide a developed historical analysis of these two entities; suffice it to say, I will provide you with a taste of their history and impact.  Information on these organizations is available online or over the phone.  Just know that if you are committed to the disability movement, tax equity and asset building, you must learn more about these organizations and join our efforts.

The mission of the National Disability Institute (NDI) is to build a better economic future for Americans with disabilities.  NDI envisions a world where people with disabilities have equal opportunity to achieve financial stability and independence as people without disabilities.  NDI has identified three enduring values that guide all decision making and activities and will help set strategic direction for the future. 1) NDI values all individuals across the spectrum of disability to be productive and contribute to the vitality of communities regardless of race, gender, cultural background and age. 2) They value self determination and informed decision making that empower individuals with disabilities to have choices and direction that respect their individual preferences. 3) They value the benefit of collaboration among all important stakeholders in the public and private sectors to design, implement, and improve opportunities for individuals with disabilities to participate in the economic mainstream and advance their financial independence.

The founder and lead change agent of NDI is Johnette Hartnett.  Johnette is a remarkable woman who is an impressive leader.  She has been a leader in the disability field for many years, and she was my mentor as I began to understand the disability work and opportunities for joining together the free tax field with the disability movement. The Boston EITC Campaign was part of the first year of the NDI/National Tax Facts Campaign which developed into the Real Economic Impact Tour.  Through this national effort we have provided access to tax and asset building services for taxpayers with disabilities. The numbers are impressive.  Since 2005, The Real Economic Impact Tour (REI Tour) has assisted 332,903 taxpayers with disabilities with free tax preparation, representing $312.3 million in refunds and $66.4 million in saved preparer fees. 

The National Community Tax Coalition (NCTC) is a national network dedicated to strengthening economies, building communities and improving lives through tax assistance and asset building activities that produce financial security, protect families and promote economic justice. Full disclosure, I am a founding member of NCTC and have been on the Steering Committee since it’s inception in 2002. A brief history: in 2002 on the last day of a national meeting in Chicago, excitement permeated the conference room where many national leaders remained from a weekend of discussion and strategy setting and voted to form NCTC, a national network that would provide a unified voice on tax policies and practices, as well as provide technical assistance and training to the community tax field. NCTC is currently housed under the Center for Economic Progress in Chicago, IL where it continues to achieve its mission of improving the economic well being of low-to-moderate income individuals, families and communities by building a movement to dramatically increase access to tax credits and benefits and asset-building opportunities.

NCTC has embraced a holistic view of free tax and asset building and has joined in partnership with NDI to build a unified movement for economic justice with the shared drivers of free taxes and asset building.  Our national leader here is Jackie Lynn Coleman, the Senior Director of NCTC as well as Vice President of National Programs for the Center for Economic Progress.  NCTC is a dynamic, effective organization pushing to provide a voice for the marginalized low-to-moderate income taxpayers while also supporting our tax preparers and community volunteers across the country with technical assistance and best practices.

None of this would be possible without other national partnerships.  The IRS is integral to our efforts.  Their stakeholder, partnership, education and communication divisions have developed along with the field. They are committed to serving the low-to-moderate income taxpayer and have led by example though their commitment to the disability and immigrant taxpayer communities.  SPEC is a formidable partner.  Last but not least, the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) has provided national leadership around the asset building field for over a decade, so they are the grandparent of this movement.  CFED is a national nonprofit based in Washington, DC dedicated to expanding economic opportunity for low-income families and communities.  CFED uses a “think-do-invest” approach grounded in community practice, public policy and private markets.

What a fascinating movement, and we are just getting started. This work, this movement building, this yearning for economic justice-- we are joining together to be change agents, to identify and fight economic injustice, to do it through service, policy development, advocacy, organizing and program development.  Join us!  We need everyone to participate in this effort for economic justice and tax fairness.