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Awareness Day vision statement
EITC Awareness Day is a one-day blitz in mainstream and social media to reach the broadest possible range of potentially eligible taxpayers, including taxpayer segments we believe under claim the EITC, the (CTC/ACTC/ODC), and the AOTC.
Join us for Awareness Day on Friday, Jan. 31, 2025
Join us in making the 19th annual EITC Awareness Day as successful as last year’s. EITC Awareness Day marks the kick-off of a nationwide multilingual communication effort intended to increase awareness of EITC eligibility, encourage participation, and emphasize the filing of accurate returns. The day also highlights free tax preparation and electronic filing through Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA)/Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) sites and Free File.
To support a nationwide EITC campaign, the IRS engages external partners to hold outreach events and uses social media to maximize taxpayer reach. As a result, 16,338 EITC awareness outreaches and events were completed in 2024 to promote EITC, and partners sponsored nearly 90 EITC Awareness Day live events and other activities such as news releases, articles, and social media messages.
In 2025, EITC will reach a major milestone. We’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of EITC and the significant role it plays in strengthening America’s working families. With your help, we want to make Awareness Day bigger this year to increase eligibility awareness of refundable credits that many missed claiming. Along with the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), we want to include the Child Tax Credit, the Additional Child Tax Credit, the Credit for Other Dependents (CTC/ACTC/ODC), and the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC).
What is Awareness Day?
Community organizations, elected officials, state and local governments, schools, employers, and other interested parties, partner in a national effort to increase awareness of refundable credits by shining a large spotlight on them from various media sources. We want to generate extensive media coverage on this specific day (or days in proximity) to increase awareness among potentially eligible taxpayers at the time when most of them are filing or getting ready to file their federal income tax returns. The IRS joins partners nationwide to launch the Awareness Day outreach campaign to ensure millions of workers get the credits they earned and deserve.
This intensive media coverage helps us reach the broadest possible range of eligible taxpayers, including the underserved populations and the newly eligible taxpayers.
Why is awareness important?
IRS estimates four of five eligible taxpayers claim and get the EITC. Best of all, EITC combined with the CTC/ACTC/ODC is a financial boost for working people and your local economy. EITC and the CTC greatly reduce poverty for working families. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities asserts that in 2018 the EITC lifted 5.6 million people above the poverty line, including nearly 3 million children, based on the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). The EITC and Child Tax Credit together lifted 10.6 million people above the SPM poverty line and made poverty less severe for 17.5 million others in 2018. (CBPP, April 28, 2023, Chuck Marr, Kris Cox, John Wancheck and Stephanie Hingtgen).
Reaching out!
We need your help to capture the attention of those millions of workers who miss out on the benefits of refundable credits each year and motivate them to explore whether they qualify. We also want to lead them to no-cost options for tax return help--volunteer tax assistance and Free File and make sure only those eligible, claim the credit.
Join us in getting the word out to those who qualify but don't file a tax return or miss the credits they deserve. Explore our Partner's Outreach Toolkit for ideas and the products you need to get the word out.
Resources for you
Our partner toolkit contains:
- Social media messages, images and videos
- Facts and promotional messaging
- Brochure on refundable tax credits PDF
- Marketing and education products
State participation
Increase awareness
Build or join a partnership and learn about promotional activities you can participate in through the year, see Partnership groups and activities.
Contacts
Federal State Local Employment Tax (FSLET) customer services
Emails: