That’s especially true for any Californian earning less than $30,000, Hasselblad said, because they are likely eligible for cash back, in the form of a tax credit. “Your best bet is to file your taxes, because there may be things like stimulus payments or the that we can’t anticipate,” said Anna Hasselblad, director of public policy at United Ways of California, a network for dozens of organizations across the state which, among other things, provide free tax prep. And if they don’t file, they can’t collect what is essentially free money on the table. It’s not just one-time pandemic payments there are also yearly payments, called refundable tax credits, that provide thousands of dollars to lower-income people through the tax system.īut some of the people eligible for those programs earn little enough that they don’t owe any taxes. One of the main ways California helps people financially - and redistributes wealth - is by passing money through the tax system. If they had received some of those payments, they said, the couple probably would have spent the money on food. They were late on their rent several times in 2020, but luckily their landlord was “gracious” about it, Kuhn said. “We do okay for two people with no kids, but we certainly don’t make a ton of money,” they said. “I wish I had filed taxes especially because, you know, it’s not that much trouble to file taxes, and especially when you don’t owe anything,” said Kuhn. In 2022, with gas prices soaring and a massive budget surplus on their hands, state lawmakers decided to send out another round of payments to help with the rising cost of living - again tied to 2020 tax returns. The state did a second round of payments in late 2021, also predicated on having filed a 2020 return. To get the payments, you had to have filed a 2020 tax return. Then, in 2021, California started sending out its own pandemic stimulus payments, which reached up to $1,200. “So why would we bother?” Kuhn, a Sacramento resident, said. She received some unemployment benefits, but even with Adam’s work as a software trainer, the couple’s earnings in 2020 were low enough that they didn’t owe taxes. His wife, who is a contractor, lost all of her work early in the pandemic.
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