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by Sumiko Saulson
It’s not too late to file taxes! Due to this year’s weather crises in some California counties, most California residents now have until Oct. 16 to file. Earlier this year, the Internal Revenue Service announced victims of severe winter storms, flooding, and mudslides in California starting on Jan. 8 now have until Oct. 16, 2023, to file individual and business tax returns.
These include all nine Bay Area counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma. For a complete list and further details visit www.ftb.ca.gov.
Filing your taxes early means more availability of free in-person and online tax filing support.
This is especially true when it comes to in-person filing appointments at Volunteer Income Tax
Assistance (VITA) sites, which offer free filing.
Interview with Sophia Selassie (she/her/hers) Program Manager, Free Tax Help, United Way Bay Area (uwba.org)
Sophia Selassie joined the United Way Bay Area team in Fall 2019 and currently serves as the Program Manager of the Free Tax Help program. Sophia has 15 years of experience working in a variety of direct service and advocacy roles with the aim of mitigating the effects of poverty. Sophia is passionate about ending wealth and racial inequity and promoting tax credits for low to mid-income families and individuals.
Sumiko Saulson: What are some reasons Black Californians might not file their taxes?
Sophia Selassie: A big reason is that a lot of people who are not required to file taxes, whose income is below the filing requirements, don’t file because they are not required to, but those are the people we want to file because they might be getting some large tax refunds.
Sumiko Saulson: Can you address some concerns that Black Californians who receive government assistance might have about filing their taxes?
Sophia Selassie: A lot of times, people who are getting government assistance are concerned about reporting extra income in addition to what they are getting through CalWorks or other programs. They feel it might affect their eligibility for these benefit programs.
However, for these benefit programs,there is an income maximum. If what you are making is below that, you are still allowed and encouraged to work and are eligible for tax credits such as the California Earned Income Tax Credit and the Young Child Tax Credit. These are other government programs that were created to alleviate poverty. As long as whatever income you are reporting is at or below the high of the income requirements for whatever social program you are on, that isn’t a program.
Sometimes people feel like getting this tax refund, say they get a $1,000 refund, they might be
worried that it will push them over their income max limit. There is also a maximum you can
have in your savings. But if you receive it and spend it right away, then it won’t impact the maximum you have in savings.
So I would suggest that they find out what the maximum they are allowed to have in savings is from their case worker or from guidelines on the website.
Sumiko Saulson: What are some ways that lower-income Black Californians can get assistance to file their taxes?
Sophia Selassie: I work for United Way Bay Area, and here in the Bay Area, we have a partnership with the IRS, with the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, also known as VITA. This is a national federal program. We at United Way Bay Area are the people who run the program in the Bay Area.
To find a site near you go to UWBay.org or call 211. If you are looking for a site in another part of California, you can go to MyFreeTaxes.org. If you want to file taxes virtually, we have assistance through GetYourRefund.org, and through MyFreeTaxes.org and you can get a link to a free filing software download for TaxSlayer so you can file the taxes on your own for free. That’s through the United Ways of California.
Sumiko Saulson: If Black Californians didn’t file taxes during the pandemic assistance programs, can they still qualify by filing back taxes?
Sophia Selassie: Yes, you can file back taxes. A lot of our sites do allow you to file back taxes, including our virtual GetYourRefund.org, and you would be eligible to get your recovery rebate which is the stimulus program if you did not get them.
Sumiko Saulson is an award-winning author of Afrosurrealist and multicultural sci-fi and horror whose latest novel, “Happiness and Other Diseases,” is available on Mocha Memoirs Press. She is the winner of the HWA Scholarship from Hell (2016), BCC Voice “Reframing the Other” contest (2017), Mixy Award (2017), Afrosurrealist Writer Award (2018), HWA Diversity Grant (2020), HWA Richard Laymon Presidents Award (2021) and the Ladies of Horror Fiction Readers Choice Award (2021).
