United Way Hill Day spotlights working families

Cynthia Pritchard, the CEO of United Way of Greater Augusta, joined 60 other United Way leaders on Capitol Hill today to push Congress — including Senator Mark Warner, Senator Tim Kaine, and Congressman Bob Goodlatte to help working American families turn their financial tightropes into solid financial pathways.

The United Way leaders – from big cities and small towns across America — represent a diverse network of 1,200 state and local United Ways in the U.S., but share a common agenda to build stronger communities, Pritchard said.

“All of us are working to bring people together to build a thriving community for everyone,” Pritchard said. “But it takes every sector – nonprofits, employers, and our local, state and federal governments. We need our elected officials in Washington to understand how important it is for Congress to support policies that strengthen families and communities.”

United Way is advocating for:

• Tax reforms helping working families, including strengthening the Earned Income Tax Credit, which helps low- wage working families keep more of what they earn, and the Child Tax Credit, which helps families offset the cost of raising children. Research shows that the two tax credits helped more than 9 million people strengthen their financial situation each year. Without action, recent improvements will expire and 148,000 children in Virginia will fall into or deeper into poverty.
• The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program (VITA), which funds volunteers to become IRS-certified tax preparers and help low-wage people file tax returns for free. Most families benefiting from VITA earn less than $40,000/year, and include people with disabilities, limited-English speakers and the elderly. This year, volunteers working at more than 11,000 locations prepared more than 3 million tax returns nationwide. Returns filed through free tax preparation brought nearly $4 billion back in refunds for low-wage taxpayers. In 2015, the local VITA program did a total of 531 returns with $106,200 in savings in preparation fees.

Across the country, United Way leads one of the biggest efforts to connect volunteers with low-wage individuals to help them file their taxes and claim relevant tax credits.