John Burton Advocates for Youth (JBAY) has been recognized with a ‘One in A Million Award’ from Multiplying Good. The award was for JBAY’s work helping foster youth maximize their tax refunds this year, which resulted in more than two thousand foster youth receiving a combined four million dollars in refunds.
“Filing for taxes is always a confusing thing for me when the time comes around,” said Emmerald Evans, a foster youth studying at Sacramento State. “It’s important for me to have help filing taxes to make sure I’m receiving the most suitable refund based on my circumstances and to be sure that I am reporting everything that is needed to be reported.”
If it wasn’t for John Burton Advocates for Youth (JBAY), Emmerald and thousands of other foster youth may have missed out on their refund this year. JBAY provided support and materials to help foster youth like Emmerald complete their tax returns and claim the California Earned Income Tax Credit (CalEITC) for the first time.
(CalEITC) is the state’s largest anti-poverty program, directing $1 billion to low-income Californians in 2019. Unfortunately, until now, young adults, aged 18 to 24, weren’t eligible, unless they were custodial parents. This exclusion was particularly hard for foster and homeless youth, who don’t have the financial support provided by most families to their young adult children.
That all changed last year, when Governor Newsom made 18- to 24-year-olds fully eligible for CalEITC for the 2020 tax year.
JBAY responded to this opportunity by launching the Cash Back for Transition-Age Youth Pledge to help foster and homeless youth take full advantage of this new tax credit. The program educates youth about the availability of the CalEITC. It also encourages youth service providers to conduct activities to increase rates of tax filing, including watching a training conducted by JBAY, distributing social media materials developed by JBAY, planning a tax-filing event, and several more.
JBAY worked with 30 organizations, reaching 2,326 homeless and foster youth by the tax deadline of July 15. This will result in an estimated $4 million in the pockets of transition-age youth in California.
“It’s been an extremely challenging year, especially with so many student jobs disappearing,” said Emmerald. “The tax credit couldn’t have come at a better time. I was able to use my refund to pay off some debts, which has been a huge relief for me.”