As the woman listened to information about filing for earned income credit on her taxes, she couldn’t believe what she’d lost.
“I’ve been ripping myself off for three years,” she repeated several times. By refiling her tax forms, the woman gained $3,000 in tax credits.
She was part of a pilot project at a Staples call center in Massachusetts to increase the disposable income of poor workers. The project, which began Feb. 1, was a test run for a program sponsored by the UW-Madison Center on Business and Poverty.