United Way of the Bay Area Blog
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Working families are about to lose nearly $13 million annually – and they need your help. Tell Congress to make permanent the improvement in tax credits for larger families and married couples. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a refundable tax credit for working individuals who earn low or moderate incomes. Since 2009 improvements [...]
Haven’t filed your taxes yet? Don’t despair. Free tax preparation is still available at dozens of Earn It! Keep It! Save It! sites throughout the Bay Area. Call 211 to find the free tax site nearest you and learn what documents you need to bring. To qualify for free tax preparation, your 2011 household income [...]
Unfortunately, thousands of low-income taxpayers are not taking advantage of our free, expert tax preparation. We’re urging these families to hold onto the money that they have worked so hard to earn and come into one of our 200 Bay Area sites where they can also connect with dozens of asset-building resources.” – Kelly Batson, [...]
Our 2010-11 Annual Report is now available. You can download a read the entire report here. If you prefer the executive summary, here is the report’s opening letter from United Way of the Bay Area Board Chair Beth Cobert and CEO Anne Wilson. Dear Friends, It has been a tough year: poverty numbers are growing, unemployment is up, [...]
United Way’s “bundled” services aren’t about keeping warm for the winter. They’re about providing integrated programs to help struggling Bay Area residents get financial help by addressing their complete financial picture. Our Earn It! Keep It! Save It! free tax preparation service is often a gateway to those bundled services. Low-income residents come in to [...]
It’s hard to believe, but there is a benefit to filing your taxes – even if you don’t get a refund! That’s because getting free tax preparation at an Earn It! Keep It! Save It! site can open the door to hundreds of local programs that can help you improve your finances. For example, Yolanda [...]
Our free tax sites open the door to programs that empower people to improve their finances. In addition to saving families hundreds of dollars on tax preparation, our sites connect low-income families with programs that can help them start saving, go back to school, get a good job, buy a first home or start a new [...]
Earn It! Keep It! Save It!, United Way’s free tax preparation program, relies on 3,600 Bay Area volunteers to ensure that people get the refunds they deserve – volunteers like Kristina Ng. When Kristina first walked into a tax site, she was nervous but prepared. She had no previous experience. However, she had received special [...]
We need your help to protect federal funding for VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) and EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit), which are essential to United Way’s Earn It! Keep It! Save It! (EKS) tax assistance program. Take action today to ensure the survival of EKS. Funding for both the VITA program and the EITC could be [...]
The results are in, and United Way’s Earn It! Keep It! Save It! free tax preparation service for low-income residents helped bring in $63.8 million in refunds to our community. That’s money that will get spent locally, generating jobs, sales, and tax revenue for government services. This news couldn’t come at a better time – [...]
