This is inside of a HOPE Inside location in Memphis, TN for SunTrust Banks, one of our largest partners in the nation.  Our trained and certified HOPE Financial Coaches take time with each client to understand their specific challenges, crafts a solution uniquely for them, and then works with them to implement their personal financial revitalization plan.  Once stabilized, our team then focuses on the aspirations of these same clients; from mainstream bank access, to consumer credit access, to substantial hopes and dreams such as becoming a homeowner or small business owner.

The HOPE Financial Coaches within Operation HOPE’s growing HOPE Inside network, a part of HOPE’s Project 5117 commitment to the community by year 2020, act as a personal financial concierge, or what we call ‘the private banker to the working poor, the working class and the struggling middle class.  People with ‘too much month at the end of their money.’  One of the many ways that my team adds value to every customer interaction, in addition to our HOPE 700 Credit Score Communities, is helping clients to qualify for and receive funding into a new bank account for the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit).

EITC is available to all Americans, and those who make about $50,000 or less qualify, yet only approximately one in five Americans that qualify for EITC actually ask for it.

Currently about 20% of the potential EITC participants do not obtain their benefits. The 27 million who do receive benefits (the 80%), receive $67 billion in EITC benefits, leaving approximately $16 billion that did not go to poor communities.

To say this simply, if you make less than $30,000 say, and you have two or three children, it is possible that you have $3,000 or more due to you from the IRS and the federal government for EITC.  And here is the best part: EITC is retroactive for three years.  So if you have never filed for EITC, or you have never heard of it before, and you qualify, it is entirely likely that you have much more scheduled to come back to you than even you know.  Possibly as much as $10,000 or more!

Question: Can you only file for EITC during tax season?

Answer: No. EITC can be certified year-round, and my team can help you amend or file your tax returns so that you can receive benefits owed. Typically you can receive what is due to you within 30 days from being certified by the IRS.

Call one of our HOPE Inside locations today — to see if you are EITC qualified, and what other benefits are due to you in this increasingly complicated financial and economic world in which we live.

Contact my team at a local office today.  Find your local office at the robust Operation HOPE website here.

Okay, let’s go…

John Hope Bryant, Founder, Operation HOPE

Pin It on Pinterest