CPCS Professors Use Federal Grant to Expand Access to Tax Filing Technology

By Ed Hayward

As many as a quarter of eligible Boston residents don’t take advantage of one of the nation’s most effective anti-poverty programs—the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)—according to two UMass Boston professors who used a federal grant to kick off an effort this tax season to return more than $1 million in federal and state taxes to qualified residents in Greater Boston.

Professors Joan Arches and Terence McLarney of the College of Public and Community Service are coordinating the Boston EITC Electronic Filing and Technology Access Project to pilot an electronic application and filing program at community technology centers providing outreach, referral, and processing services.

The project, which will supplement the City of Boston EITC Campaign’s 156 free tax-help sites, hopes to return $1 million in federal and state taxes, including $300,000 in EITCs, to low-income residents in Boston neighborhoods for the 2003 tax year. U.S. Department of Commerce funding of $500,000 supports the project.

“This is a national model for much better access to technology for residents who might otherwise not be able to take advantage of the new tools in our increasingly digital world,” said McLarney. “Our goal is to raise awareness of electronic filing for the EITC, as well as state and federal tax returns. Finally, we see this as a gateway to other financial literacy services for inner-city residents.”

The program seeks to increase access to an existing support system for EITC filing, as well as community technology centers, which are multimedia facilities that emerged in the 1990s as improved versions of neighborhood computer centers. The technology centers now have staff that can help residents use the computer tools needed to navigate the filing systems.

“People should have the tools, the place, and the confidence to use this technology, regardless of whether they can afford a computer in their home,” said Arches. “It’s a viewpoint that’s shared by the city, the EITC Coalition, the non-profit groups, and the university community involved with us. This project aims to address the promise technology holds for everyone in our society.”

e project, now being piloted at community technology centers in Boston, Malden, and New Bedford, brings a specialized on-line application and federal filing program, known as ICAN, from its initial success in Orange County, Calif., to Boston and a select few other cities throughout the United States, said McLarney.

ICAN, developed by Legal Services of Orange County, is a national computer filing program that simplifies the steps required to file for the federal EITC, which last year returned $36 billion to low-income working individuals and families.

Filing for the EITC takes approximately 20 to 30 minutes through the ICAN system, said McLarney. Typically, residents have had to rely on private tax- preparation offices as the nearest access point for filing services and technology. A family of four earning $25,000 in 2003 was eligible for a credit of up to $4,204.

The work of McLarney and Arches is in partnership with the City of Boston’s EITC Campaign, the non-profit Survivors Inc., of Roxbury, Mass., and CTCNet New England, the regional affiliate of a national coalition of community technology centers.

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