Council Considering More Funding For Food Banks' Tax Return Program

The Food Bank for New York City is not just dishing out meals, they are also saving dough for thousands of city residents.

At a press conference on Wednesday the nonprofit organization announced that its program to help residents with their tax returns had netted roughly $85 million in additional tax refunds for 54,000 returns. That's up from around 38,000 filers helped the previous year.

The reason the program is so effective is because many residents don't realize they are eligible for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit program, or EITC, which grants low-wage earners who file taxes, even if they’re not required to file, a tax credit that allows them to retain more of what they earned if they meet certain requirements.  

The success of the program has spurred calls for more money from the city in order to expand the program to cover more New Yorkers.

“Even with that success, we still aren’t there and there’s still quite a lot that we can actually do,” she said during the conference," said Margarette Purvis, President and CEO of the charity. “Even I was shocked to find that one in five New Yorkers who actually are eligible for the tax credit are still not receiving it.”

The program was lauded by Councilman Dan Garodnick who was particularly pleased with the way it gave working families at the poverty line a fighting chance, though he believed there was a lot more work left to be done.

 “With another $100,000 from the city council we’d be able to add another $8 million into the pocket of New Yorkers,” Garodnick said. “These are the folks who deserve a little boost from us.”

Reverend Terry Troia, Executive Director of Project Hospitality, boasted on the $3 million of tax returns generated by Staten Island.

“It supports our economy, it helps people pay taxes, so that’s really important because that supports our economy on the other side and it give a little boost to low-wage working families who could use the extra money,” Troia said.

According to Purvis, that money materializes as a result of the free tax services Food Bank provides and in some cases, through the process of going back years and fixing issues for client. She said she has seen some people end up with a staggering $15,000 in a refund.

“That’s a game-changer,” she said. “The landlords are off your back now. You now can maybe put some money away for savings.”

Those are savings that will be crucial as many food pantries and soup kitchens are still licking their wounds after being dealt huge blows by a combination of federal Emergency Food Assistance Program funding plateauing, rising costs of food in the city and the Snap Cuts enacted back in 2010.

Triada Stampas, Food Banks’ Senior Director of Government Relations & Public Education, stated that the plethora of cuts have increased demands. She added that the month the SNAP cuts went into effect 75% of food pantries saw an increase of need. Food stamp benefits were also cut, creating more demand for emergency food stamps. .

Stampas argues that decreasing the dependence on soup kitchens and food pantries begins with a funding bump from $11.7 million to $19.8 million in the city budget. She said that would allow Food Banks to stop playing catch-up with the cities rising food costs and poverty can begin.

“This is a program where small dollars make a big difference,” she said.

In order to make that big difference a reality as opposed to a possibility, conversations have been held with de Blasio administration and the city council, though money to fund the expansion of the EITC program has yet to be found.

Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal said additional funding for the program is a “no-brainer.”

“Earned Income Tax Credit is one of the most obvious, simple and easy ways to support those New Yorkers who are most in need and I’m only just curious as to why all 51 of my colleagues are not here,” she said.

The support of the council was not lost on Purvis, who expressed gratitude and acknowledged that this is a step in the right direction.

“I think the big step for us honestly is anytime you can have a leader to actually step out as your partner and to really endorse the validity, the value, of the service that you provide,” she said. “I think that that’s always the biggest step and for someone who is as respected as many of the members who have stood with us, and just for city council as a body, to actually say ‘you know what, this is a solution that works. Not only are we going to support it, but we are going to support it at a higher level.’ It doesn’t get any better than that.”