 What is the EIC, the Earned Income Tax Credits? The EIC is a credit for certain people who work. The credit may give you a refund even if you don't owe any tax or didn't have any tax with help. So in other words, the Earned Income Tax Credit is generally aimed at lower income individuals, but it's trying to incentivize people to work so you have to have some earned income. That's why it says you work. You have some earned income in order to get the credit. If you have no earned income, then you shouldn't be generally requalified for the credit is the general idea. Now note that if you don't, if your income is below a certain threshold, the general thought process or the questions you might have is, do I have to file at all? Do I have to file at all if my income is below a certain threshold? Well, if your income is below the standard deduction, you would think you don't have to file because the IRS isn't going to come after you because you don't owe them any money because you're under the standard deduction, you have zero taxable income in essence. That's a different question, however, than should I file? Would it be beneficial to file? And oftentimes the answer there is going to be, yes, even if you didn't have any withholdings from the W-2 that could possibly be refunded to you because of these refundable credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit. And also, oftentimes if you're filing before the due date, I think including extensions, you might be able to get access to free software from third-party providers looking for that software on the IRS website, iris.gov. And so it's worth checking out if it would be beneficial to file, if you can get access to the free software can help you calculate this Earned Income Tax Credit even though it is a complicated credit to calculate. All right, so to take the EIC, the Earned Income Credit, follow the steps below. Complete the worksheet that applies to you or let the IRS figure the credit for you. Now, again, generally software is quite useful and helpful to walk you through the steps to figure out the credit. You can kind of double check it and deconstruct it and you might be able to get access to free software or even low-income individuals on the IRS website, free file. So if you have a qualifying child, complete and attach Schedule EIC. So if you have at least one child who meets the conditions to be your qualifying child for purposes of claiming the EIC Earned Income Tax Credit, complete the attached Schedule EIC even if that child doesn't have a valid SSN social security number. See Schedule EIC for more information including how to complete Schedule EIC if your qualifying child doesn't have a valid SSN social security number caution. If you take the EIC Earned Income Tax Credit, even though you aren't eligible and it is determined that your error is due to reckless or intentional disregard of the EIC rules or an income credit rules, you won't be allowed to take the credit for two years even if you are otherwise eligible to do so. So the issue here is like any kind of benefit program. This program is going to be something that is subject to people trying to get an invalid refund or flat out committing fraud. Identity theft is an issue with it as well because you know it's money, it's kind of like free money to an extent because you're not getting a refund from it. You're actually getting a benefit program to it so people can people take advantage of it which of course means that the IRS has to balance between the amount of advantage people are going to take from it and how they're going to lock down that we'll still be able to get the benefits related to the credit, the pros outweighing the cons. So if you fraudulently take the EIC you won't be allowed to take the credit for 10 years so fraud would be intent. They find that you intentionally did this. It's difficult thing to to prove intention but obviously if they say that intent was involved then 10 years. C form 8862 who must file later you may also have to pay penalties. So tip refunds for returns claiming the earned income tax credit can't be issued before mid-February 2023. So note the other thing that's involved with this credit is they're trying to commit or reduce fraud, identity theft, people find fraudulent tax returns for example and trying to claim these refundable credits because again you can basically possibly get the credit even without any refund so without any withholdings. So that's a huge fraud problem. So to try to mitigate that they need a little bit more time to process the paperwork over there and hope and that's I believe something that could help them or is helping them and the reason for delaying the refund pass what you might be able to get if you weren't claiming that particular credit. So this delay applies to the entire refund not just the portion associated with the earned income credit so you might be thinking hey why can't you just give me part of the reform fund that's not part of the credit. Well that they could I guess but that would be kind of complicated to do take a lot more time and effort so they're not doing that.