GetYourRefund & FileYourStateTaxes

In 2019, I was part of a small team researching possible new projects at Code for America. We identified tax credits as a massively underutilized source of assistance for low income households, with an estimated $10.5 billion from the Earned Income Tax Credit left unclaimed in one year by 8 billion eligible households. After interviewing volunteer tax assistants and many eligible non-filers, we felt there was potential for a well-designed free digital service to help close that gap and to have a meaningful positive impact for billions of people.

In partnership with several key VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) organizations, we launched GetYourRefund.org in March 2020 as a free online tax assistance service enabling people to access tax help from trained volunteers. In its first year of operation during the pandemic, GetYourRefund helped 76,000 households obtain an estimated $295 million.

Code for America’s tax benefits program expanded to include GetCTC.org, which helped households obtain Economic Impact Payments and Child Tax Credits during the COVID-19 pandemic. I was a part of the Code for America team that built FileYourStateTaxes.org in collaboration with the IRS DirectFile team. During the first year of the DirectFile pilot, people filing taxes in the states of New York or Arizona would be referred to FileYourStateTaxes after completing their federal returns.