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Oklahoma working families saw a smaller tax refund this year

If you are one of the more than 300,000 Oklahoma households that claim the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), you may have noticed that your tax refund is lower than it was last year, even if there was no change in your income. That’s because the Oklahoma Legislature slashed the state EITC to help close last year’s budget hole. The state EITC is no longer refundable in Oklahoma, so most people who qualify for the credit will no longer get the full benefit.

The EITC is a tax credit that encourages work by supplementing income from lower wage jobs. You must have earned income to claim the credit, and the amount of the credit depends on a family’s earnings and number of children. In 2017, a family with one adult working full-time at minimum wage and two children can claim an earned income credit of $5,572 on their federal tax return and a credit of $278.60 (5 percent of the federal amount) on their Oklahoma tax return. The state EITC was adopted in Oklahoma in 2000 with strong bipartisan support. People all across the state in every legislative district benefit from it.

Courtney Cullison is a policy analyst with Oklahoma Policy Institute. For the rest of this article and more, visit okpolicy.org.