The Child Tax Credit Non-Filer Tool Is a Mess
This week, the IRS launched its “Non-filer Sign-up Tool” for households that are eligible for the newly expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) but do not typically file taxes because their income is too low. As we have pointed out here in several pieces, there are design flaws with the CTC that will make it unnecessarily difficult—both for households and for administrators—to get these benefits to the very poor who stand to gain the most from the program.
Judging by messaging coming out of the White House, the expanded CTC is the administration’s flagship antipoverty program. Fact sheets published by the administration continue to cite estimates that the program will “[cut] child poverty by more than half”. These estimates, however, depend on the program generating a 100% participation rate which, as we have discussed previously, will be difficult to achieve under the statutory constraints as well as unfortunate administrative execution.
The Non-filer Sign-up Tool is a website provided under an agreement between the IRS and the Free File Alliance, a consortium of tax preparer firms, including Intuit. The agreement provides that the IRS will not offer free filing services, and instead the firms in the Free File Alliance will provide some free filing services at the IRS’ behest over the term of the agreement.
